CHINA US Focus - Perspectives shaping the world's most important bilateral relationship

Severe weather forced China to transform its mode of growth by creating a sustainable economic and energy system conditions.

It is hard to imagine that China could one day lead the world in going green when you look at the smog-filled skies that are everyday reality there. The government knows that energy fuels the growth of nations, and that China's dependence on foreign energy imports creates a national security risk. People, both rich and [...]

This is significant for human society.  In the past 20 years, though achievements have been made in the areas of education, alleviation of poverty etc., the progress has been very slow in terms of the goals set by Rio conference in 1992, according to Mr. Maurice Strong, then under Secretary General of United Nations and [...]

China has become in the last few years the world’s largest emitter of CO2, followed closely by the USA. It has a voracious use of natural resources – most from Latin America – as is usual for nations with a rapid rate of industrial growth. Yet the average Chinese citizen emits only one fourth of [...]

One of the few bright spots in recent international negotiations to replace the expiring 1997 Kyoto Protocol on curbing global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has been the framework agreement concluded at the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) that took place in Durban, South Africa in December 2011.  In addition to extending the Kyoto Protocol, [...]

China’s government completed its Energy Saving and Emission Reduction（ESER）initiative for the “11th Five-year Plan” by the end of 2010. It achieved the goal by statistically reducing energy consumption per Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 19.1%, carbon dioxide emissions by 14.29%, and chemical oxygen demand (COD) by 12.45%. The gains were approximately equal to the goals [...]