California and China to Co-operate on Low-Carbon Economy

GLOBE-Net, April 15, 2013 – After more than a year of preparatory work, the industrial powerhouse of Guangdong Province and the State of California have launched a new climate change partnership to share tools and strategies for policy, trade, and investment in low carbon programs and technologies that boost economic growth and cut energy use.

The new agreement advances the design and implementation of low-carbon development policies, assessment of their economic performance, expanded capacity in planning and implementation, monitoring of outcomes that will reduce carbon and other pollution threats, and creation of new jobs and markets in both countries.

The Agreement was bartered by the Washngton, D.C.-based Center for Climate Strategies (CCS), a public purpose, nonpartisan, nonprofit partnership organization  that has been working with its Chinese NGO partner, the Global Environmental Institute (GEI), to support this new California-Guangdong partnership.

The Center for Climate Strategies is also the U.S. partner that worked with GLOBE Advisors on the milestone report on the West Coast Clean Economy that was published by the Pacific Coast Collaborative and released last year at GLOBE 2012. (See GLOBE-Net article “GLOBE report says west coast clean economy jobs could hit 1.5 million by 2020“).

That report called for cooperative arrangements between  other states, provinces, and nations seeking immediate benefits of low carbon development.

[stextbox id=”custom” float=”true” width=”200″ bcolor=”add3d5″ bgcolor=”add3d5″ image=”null”]”The industries and the countries that have taken the lead in the low-carbon fuel technology will be the winners.” California Governor Jerry Brown (Pictured above)[/stextbox]

California and Guangdong are leaders on environmental and energy actions in their nations, including carbon reduction and sustainable economic and energy growth. Through the new cooperative mechanism, the two leaders will help reduce barriers to national and global policies, markets, and agreements in these areas.

“This work will help enable China — through its provinces and cities — to achieve economic growth and carbon and energy intensity reduction targets for its 12th Five Year Plan,” said Thomas Peterson, President and CEO of the Center of Climate Strategies.

“It also helps California and the United States expand opportunities for clean markets and energy sources that create jobs and reduce local vulnerability to climate change risks,” he added.

California Governor Jerry Brown, who led a large delegation of U.S. business leaders to China as part of the mission leading to the signing of the partnership speaking  at Tsinghua University,  said “The industries and the countries that have taken the lead in the low-carbon fuel technology will be the winners.”

Brown boasted about the state’s record as an innovator on clean technology and government crackdowns on carbon emissions and said a deeper partnership between the state and Chinese government would be mutually beneficial,  calling clean-tech business opportunities a “great source of industrial power and profit.”

The U.S. Department of State and Chinese National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) officially recognized the multi-year cooperation between CCS and GEI as an EcoPartnership under the U.S.-China Ten Year Framework (TYF) for Cooperation on Energy and Environment during the third joint meeting of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Washington, D.C. in May 2011.

CCS has been working in China with GEI and national and subnational government agencies and institutes, especially in Guangdong and Chongqing, to support low carbon development planning and exchange with U.S. state and federal government agencies, experts, and stakeholders.

“China – Our Shared Future”  will be a major topic at GLOBE 2014, the next in the celebrated GLOBE Series Conferences on the business of the environment taking place in Vancouver Canada, March 26-28, 2014. Reserve your place now. Check here for more details