U.S. Relations With the People's Republic of China (2008)

U.S. Department of State

Climate Change, Energy Security and the Clean Technology Revolution

Paula J. Dobriansky, Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs
Remarks at the 2nd EU-US Business Roundtable on "Energy and Technology: Powering the Green Revolution, Our Options for the Future, Hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce in Spain
Madrid, Spain
September 29, 2008

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U.S. Leadership in Advancing Clean Energy

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As part of our effort to advance the global development and deployment of renewable energy, the United States was privileged to host the Washington International Renewable Energy Conference (WIREC) in March of this year.

WIREC was the third global ministerial conference on renewable energy, building on previous conferences in Germany in 2004 and China in 2005. All told, nearly 9,000 participants from 125 countries, including 103 ministers, showed up. WIREC featured more than 70 official side events and a world-class trade show featuring exhibits from 246 organizations. India has graciously offered to host the next international renewable energy conference in 2010.

WIREC produced an International Action Program composed of more than 140 concrete pledges from governments, international organizations and the private sector to advance renewable energy. Many of these pledges – such as Spain's to increase the use of renewables to at least 12% of all energy by 2010 – came from the European public and private sector, and we commend your leadership in this area.

The United States is also working to combat climate change and foster a clean energy future through a series of international, public-private partnerships. One of our largest such initiatives is the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (APP). The APP is a practical, results-oriented partnership that brings together seven of the region's largest developed and developing countries: Australia, Canada, China, India, Japan, Korea, and the United States. Partner countries collectively account for over half of the world's economy, population, and energy use.

The APP provides an innovative public-private forum for government and industry leaders to identify opportunities to commercialize and deploy cleaner technologies across major industries. The APP's work is spread across eight task forces, including one on renewable energy and distributed generation.

After just three years of hard work, the more than 100 projects currently endorsed by the Partnership are already yielding significant results. For example, an American APP participant, the Eaton Corporation, is now providing hybrid buses to the city of Guangzhou, China. In India, APP is working to increase the efficiency of power plants, thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And another project is promoting the uptake of compact fluorescent lamps in China, by ensuring greater quality control in all CFL manufacturing in the region.

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Toward an Effective and Sustainable post-2012 Arrangement

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As we push for certain common elements of a future framework, we also recognize that there will continue to be a need for differentiation in some areas. And that brings me to my second point: each country's national actions should take into account different national circumstances. So while the character of our respective commitments may be common, the content of those commitments will vary from country to country. The U. S. commitment will look different from the commitments of China, for example. And China's commitment, we assume, will look different from that of India, which in turn will look different from that of a small island state like Tuvalu.

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Released on October 30, 2008