The U.S. Energy Secretary says the prospects for China-US cooperation in combating climate change are encouraging.
He made the remark after leaders from the two countries issued a joint presidential announcement.
Ernest Moniz says President Xi's visit has pushed forward the implementation of commitments announced by China and the United States.
"First of all, I think the visit of President Xi is one that is reinforcing what is I think a common vision between the United States and China in terms of addressing climate change. Obviously, it started with their joint announcement, President Obama and President Xi last November in Beijing, and I might say that announcement itself was very, very important. It really changed the nature, I think, of the global dialogue in terms of how we will address climate. But now with this visit, we are going to the next step. We're talking about implementation."
Moniz says China has made great efforts to honor its commitments on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
" In addition, we have a very important collaboration, which, I think, gets less attention, is the one between sub-national governments, states or cities. And there we see also Chinese cities and American cities often partnering, and we are seeing their commitments about, in fact, peaking the urban emissions much earlier than 2030."
He says the U.S. has adopted an open view in cooperating with Chinese companies.
"We are certainly very open and welcoming. In fact, in the Department of Energy, first of all, we have some major projects, for example, in carbon capture and sequestration where Chinese participants are both welcomed and deeply engaged in the discussion. But we've also had Chinese companies have equity stakes in some of the companies that we have supported. So we look forward very much to investments in both directions."
Meanwhile, Moniz says the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center (CERC) provides a good example in technology cooperation.
"I might just note that specifically in technology cooperation, we do have what, I think, is a very successful joint program called the Clean Energy Research Center (CERC), which has a number of different tracks, involving buildings, involving coal and carbon capture and sequestration and the like. And we had a major review of that program earlier this year. And I think that's been very successful and frankly, could provide a template for bilateral collaboration that we have not only with China, but with other countries as well."
