More scope for Sino-US cooperation on climate

Energy industry experts in the US have felt encouraged by instances of closer cooperation between the United States and China in recent years and are calling for further collaboration to solve global climate problems.

"Any sort of global climate solution is obviously going to rely almost entirely on the actions of both the US and China. And there has been a lot of cooperation," said Jeff Berman, director of energy transition analysis at consultancy Rapidan Energy Group.

Before the 2015 Paris Agreement, the US and China struck an agreement on reducing emissions in late 2014. Last year, when the new global agreement－the Glasgow Climate Pact－was reached, the two countries issued a joint pledge to ramp up cooperation in tackling climate change.

Using the examples of the two agreements, Berman said at a conference hosted by the US-Asia Institute on Wednesday that "underlying the US-China competition" are the opportunities for collaboration in energy fields to address the global climate crisis.

There is a "deep and intense commercial relationship" between the US and China, said Berman, in which the US sends liquefied natural gas, or LNG, to China, and the US buys renewable energy components from China.

"How that relationship is going to develop over the years is really going to ultimately define what the energy transition looks like," he said.

'Bright spot'

Fred Hutchison, president and CEO of LNG Allies, a nonprofit organization backing the LNG industry in the US, said LNG has been "a bright spot" in trade between the US and China in the past couple of years.

"In recent months, we've seen a number of companies in China sign long-term contracts with US LNG export facilities," he said. "All of the large LNG projects in the United States require project financing. They are anywhere from $5 billion to $10 billion or more in cost, and those have to be backed by long-term contracts with creditworthy counterparties."

China has represented "a tremendous market" for the US LNG industry, said Hutchison.

"We're anticipating that LNG will play a very important role in the substitution for coal power in China, which will be incredibly important as the world moves through its transition," said Hutchison.

Chen Da, a counselor representing the National Development and Reform Commission at the Chinese embassy in the US, said: "To resolve climate change problems … we must start from solving energy problems. Promoting the transformation of energy production and consumption is the fundamental way to solve energy problems, to solve climate change problems.

"China and the United States have different energy resources and energy technology advantages, so I think there's broad space for cooperation in the field of energy, including traditional energy innovation."