Climate Work: US and China

In more promising news, Secretary of State Clinton is heading to China with climate and energy high on her agenda.

Todd Stern, the newly created special envoy on climate change for the United States, will be with Mrs. Clinton in China. In an e-mail message, he said a top goal is to end the endless sparring between the two giant sources of greenhouse gases over who needs to do what first.

“Secretary Clinton is keenly aware that the United States — as the largest historic emitter of greenhouse gases — and China — as the largest emitter going forward — need to develop a strong, constructive partnership to build the kind of clean energy economies that will allow us to put the brakes on global climate change,” Mr. Stern said. “We need to put finger-pointing aside and focus on how our two leading nations can work together productively to solve the problem.”

Revkin: Dot Earth

Geoffrey Lean at the Independent (UK) is positively giddy.

Maybe we are on the brink of one of those rare moments that transform the world for the better. For the Obama administration’s moves to forge a climate partnership with China offer much the best chance yet of averting the most serious crisis civilisation has faced.

Hillary Clinton’s visit to Beijing next week could prove far more important than President Nixon’s “China initiative”, which opened up the giant country to the world almost 40 years ago.

And a second article:

Hillary Clinton, his Secretary of State, is to raise the prospect of a “strong, constructive partnership” to combat climate change on a visit to Beijing next week, and the President is seriously considering a proposal from many of his most senior advisers to hold a summit with the Chinese leadership to launch the plan.

Last week, China’s ambassador to the US, Zhou Wenzhong, made it clear that his government would welcome “co-operation on energy and climate change” with the US. Such unprecedented teamwork would transform the world’s prospects for agreeing radical measures to combat global warming, and – senior Obama administration officials believe – lay the foundation of a new relationship between the two most powerful countries in the world.

Oh please please please let it be true….

And just for good measure, here is Bill Hewitt’s Climate Change blog at the Foreign Policy Association