Experts call for closer Sino-US green ties to fight climate change

The accelerating effects of climate change this summer, from melting glaciers in the Alps to devastating floods in Nepal, show the urgency of global action, with clean energy experts calling for closer cooperation between the United States and China to address the crisis.

Steve Westly, founder and managing partner of the Westly Group, a California-based venture capital firm specializing in energy and climate solutions, said tackling climate change would require the world's two largest economies to reach a "grand bargain" on reducing emissions and accelerating the transition to green energy.

"It does not happen without the US and China forging some level of an agreement first," said Westly, a former Tesla board member.

He proposed a framework under which the two countries would commit to reducing emissions across five areas: power generation, industrial manufacturing, nature and land use, transportation, and food and agriculture.

The proposal would also include a global cap-and-trade mechanism to help finance the transition, with revenue from carbon-intensive industries supporting environmental protection and restoration projects in developing countries. An international monitoring system using satellites and digital technologies could help track progress, he said.

Westly said advances in renewable energy technology, particularly in China, have made the transition to cleaner energy increasingly affordable. He credited China's manufacturing capabilities with driving down battery costs and accelerating the adoption of electric vehicles and other clean technologies.

"China is producing more solar, wind and batteries than the rest of the world combined last year," he said.

However, technological progress alone would not be enough, he argued, pointing to political and financial obstacles that continue to slow global climate action.

"We know exactly how to solve global warming. It's just the financial and political will that has been missing," Westly said.

He also noted that some voices in the US administration continue to question climate change or argue that clean energy policies could hurt economy.

Practical areas

While Westly emphasized the need for international agreement, Liang Min, managing director of the Bits & Watts Initiative at Stanford University, identified several practical areas where China-US cooperation could benefit their energy industries and accelerate the deployment of clean technologies.

The two countries have complementary strengths that could allow them to learn from each other, said Min, whose program focuses on modernizing the 21st-century electric grid.

"The United States can learn from China in terms of manufacturing and scaling capabilities," he said. "On the other side, China can learn from the US in terms of market design."

One promising area is the development of common international standards for energy technologies, Min said.

China has become increasingly dominant in high-voltage direct current transmission technology, which enables electricity to be transmitted efficiently over long distances. Min said both countries could work together on standards for technologies that improve the flexibility of electricity systems.

Such technologies include integrating electric vehicles into power grids, connecting battery storage to electricity systems and managing power supplies as renewable energy becomes more widely deployed.

"Once we establish common standards, we can really scale these technologies," he said.

That would benefit companies on both sides, allowing US technology providers to sell products in China while opening opportunities for Chinese technologies to enter the US market, he added.

Another important area for cooperation is energy storage, particularly battery safety, which has become increasingly relevant as Chinese-manufactured batteries are deployed in US electricity systems.

Safety problems could originate in battery hardware, energy management systems or other components, making it important to develop standards that address the entire system rather than individual products, Min said.

Yet geopolitical tensions remain a major obstacle to realizing that potential.

Min said uncertainty surrounding US-China relations has complicated collaboration on clean energy, even in areas where both countries stand to gain from closer technological exchanges. "But I think both countries want to do what's good for their people, despite the many constraints and challenges they face," he said.