Study urges US-China climate effort

China and the United States must act quickly and jointly if the world is to be saved from devastating climate change, according to a document issued by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and the Asia Society Center on US-China Relations, Reuters reported. The nations, it said, cannot wait for new domestic legislation or multilateral agreements.
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"If these two countries cannot find ways to bridge the long-standing divide on this issue, there will literally be no solution," the report said. "That our planet is now approaching a point of no return on the question of global warming is increasingly self-evident."

 

The document – A Roadmap for US-China Cooperation on Energy and Climate Change – was drawn up in part by Steven Chu, now the US energy secretary.

 

The world’s two top greenhouse-gas emitting nations must bring their leaders together for a climate summit, the report said, noting that protectionist fears needed to be overcome and clean technology efforts needed to be accelerated. The "roadmap" called for a top-level strategic US partnership with China, to heal long-standing disputes over emissions reductions and funding.

 

This bilateral effort should precede the UN climate conference in Copenhagen in December, the document said. At that meeting, a new global agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol is to be crafted. US secretary of state Hillary Clinton is scheduled to visit Beijing later this month.

 

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