At the 19th Party Congress, President Xi announced that China had “taken a driving seat in international cooperation to respond to climate change.” But as much as Beijing has done to get its own house in order domestically, it has hasn’t always let concern over climate change inform its trade policy or diplomacy. And while China is becoming a cleaner, lower-emissions country at a national level, it has done so by "outsourcing" emissions, both internally and overseas.

China plans to stop accepting imports of solid waste materials by end of 2017. This ban is expected to improve China’s domestic environmental and food safety issues. While the U.S. recycling industry is worrying about the economic damage of this policy change, the ban could trigger a positive change in U.S. domestic recycling policies.

China seized global attention in September with the announcement that it had begun earnestly planning a ban on traditional gas-fueled vehicles. So far, no date has been set for the final cutoff, and important strategic details remain murky. But the decisiveness and finality of the announcement has animated environmentalists, investors and auto manufacturers, who sense a unique business opportunity.

Recently, the world has witnessed larger typhoons and bigger hurricanes in size and frequency. As climate risks are escalating, efforts to contain collateral damage are eroding. What is needed is joint U.S.-Chinese climate leadership.

China has reaffirmed its schedule to launch the world’s largest “cap-and-trade” market for carbon emission permits in 2017. This national carbon market is expected to lower the cost of emission reduction, as China strives to fulfill its Paris pledge of peaking carbon emission by 2030.

Like the United States, China’s falling emissions have been aided by renewable energy expansions, but are more a result of economic forces that would have existed in the absence of government effort. Germany on the other hand has made strong policy decisions that have transformed the shape of its energy infrastructure, rather than letting its energy infrastructure transform the shape of its policy. If China wishes to lead the world to two degrees, it should follow Germany’s example, not the U.S.’s.

The path of green and low-carbon development outlined in the Paris Agreement fits beautifully with China’s strategy to develop an ecological civilization. Hard-won and embraced by virtually every country, its spirit stands in stark contrast to the new US president’s lack of forward thinking.

With the US now unwilling to pay the price of global leadership, other countries will seize both the opportunities and the responsibility to make the Paris accord work.

As the president pushes the private sector to assume more of the federal government’s role in environmental protection, developing standards and related technology updating could mean new cooperation areas for business and local governments in China and the US. Green-friendly China could also become a haven for like-minded entrepreneurs in the US.

US President Donald Trump has announced that the United States will no longer participate in the 2015 Paris climate agreement, the landmark United Nations treaty that many of us worked so hard to achieve. Trump is making a mistake that will have grave repercussions for his own country, and for the world.