after a few minutes he departs from his prepared remarks. “I just came back from visiting China with the president,” he says, no longer reading. When he was there two years ago, there was little interest in doing anything about climate change or carbon emissions. “That is no longer true,” he says. “The president of China, the premier of China, the vice premier of China are all saying, ‘This is a very big deal for us. If we continue business as usual, continue to grow our carbon emissions, it would be devastating for the world, devastating for China.’ But they also say, ‘This is our great economic opportunity.’ And for that reason, they’re investing over $100 billion a year in the clean energy economy.”
When Chu pivots back to the US, his point becomes clear: Spending on clean technology isn’t a feel-good sideline. It’s an investment that can yield jobs and profit. Someone is going to invent the technology that cleans our factories and our air — someone in Beijing or someone in the Buckeye State.
On the way back to the airport, Chu is still fired up about China. Too many times, he says, he’s heard American businesses justifying their environmental inaction by saying that going green would put them at a disadvantage compared to their environmentally irresponsible Chinese competitors. Those days, he argues, are long gone. China’s supposed inaction isn’t an excuse; China’s rapid action should be a motivation.
After China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, its economy soared. As a result, so did its carbon emissions. To make the products the West demanded, the nation had factories operating at full tilt no matter how old or polluting. To create the infrastructure to support its new economy, China generated unimaginable amounts of energy-intensive cement and steel. In 2006, China surpassed the US in total emissions.
For Chu, this makes China the key to America’s energy future. Since the US and China produce some 40 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, Chu argues that far-reaching multicountry agreements aren’t really necessary. All the diplomatic inertia and endless compromise make them difficult to achieve and unlikely to have real teeth. It’s smarter to deal with China alone. A massive investment by the US and China, and a series of strong treaties between the two countries, would have a big effect on actual emissions, and the pacts would also serve as a model and inspiration for other countries. In part because they’re such massive polluters, the US and China have been the two countries stifling progress toward international agreements. If they could agree, others would feel the logjam had broken and follow along. It’s like a high school movie: Once the jocks and the nerds unite for a common cause, everyone falls in line.
Much more at:
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/04/ff_stevenchu/all/1http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/04/ff_stevenchu/all/1