Wu Hao: Clean Energy Cooperation is a win-win cooperation between the United States and China

Energy is one of the earliest areas for scientific and technological cooperation between China and the United States. In 1979, Chinese Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping visited the United States and signed the Sino-U.S. Cooperation Agreement with US President Carter, which included 30 bilateral memorandums on environmental and energy cooperation. In recent years, the cooperation between the two countries in clean energy has been accelerating. In 2008, the two countries signed the "China-U.S. Energy Environment Decade Cooperation Framework" document. In 2009, during President Obama’s visit to China, the two sides announced a series of energy cooperation agreements. The leaders of the two countries pledged to strengthen cooperation and develop a roadmap for the extensive use of clean energy in both countries. The implementation of the agreement reached by the leaders of the two countries will become the main thread through which clean energy cooperation between the two countries will continue throughout the year.

During China’s State President Hu Jintao’s state visit to the United States, the Sino-U.S. think tank hosted the second Sino-US strategic cooperation forum on clean energy and pragmatic cooperation. Many high-ranking officials and scholars from both sides attended the meeting, making the conference quite noticeable. Wu Hao, director of the China Environment Forum at the Wilson Center in the United States, believes that this arrangement is the latest example of the importance of clean energy cooperation between the U.S. and China governments, and will greatly promote cooperation between the two countries in the field of clean energy.

Wu Hao compared the clean energy market to a “cake”. This "cake" has a market potential of 32 trillion US dollars. Faced with this huge market, there is competition between the two countries, but more cooperation opportunities. Due to climate change, environmental pollution and other factors, the global demand for clean energy continues to grow. Cooperation between the two countries can make the market bigger and of global significance.

Wu Hao praised China's achievements in the field of clean energy. She believes that China has achieved great success in creating a global clean energy market, and China is becoming a leader in the development and use of clean energy. This has benefited from the Chinese government's formulation of specific policies on energy efficiency, renewable energy, etc. The continuity of policies has created necessary conditions for companies to invest in clean energy.

Wu Hao told reporters that one of the interesting things that happened in Washington, DC last year was that people talked about “the United States is lagging behind China in terms of clean energy”. Some people also think that "China is stealing green jobs in the United States." She believes that this statement is purely nonsense, because jobs cannot rely on "theft" but only on "creation." It does not matter whether wind energy, solar energy and other clean energy products are produced in China or in the United States. Statistics show that 75% of green jobs are created by installation and use. The installation of clean energy products such as solar panels in China by the United States will also create more green jobs.

Wu Hao believes that the development of clean energy cooperation between the United States and China not only has urgent practical needs but also has various favorable conditions. China will turn green and the United States will turn green. After 10 years, 1/3 of the US thermal power plants are to be phased out. By 2050, due to the aging of facilities, all existing power plants, including nuclear power, hydropower, and thermal power, need to be updated. In order to cope with the environmental pressure brought about by rapid development, China has continuously developed new clean energy, which has become a large laboratory for green technology, thereby reducing the cost of developing clean energy. This is exactly what the United States needs because one of the challenges in developing a huge clean energy market is low cost. The United States has advantages in regulations, law enforcement, and individual technologies. It is also a large market for the export of clean energy products in China. Both governments have fully realized that clean energy cooperation is a win-win cooperation.

Technology transfer and related intellectual property protection have once hindered the pace of technological cooperation between the United States and China. Wu Hao believes that this is not a problem today, not only because China has developed its own development capabilities, but also because the two governments have started a new type of cooperation. The Sino-U.S. Clean Energy Joint Research Center established in 2009 is this new brand. The embodiment of cooperation. According to the cooperation agreement, the two countries will share the costs and share the costs. Scientists and technicians from energy laboratories, universities, and non-governmental organizations from both countries will conduct joint research that includes technical cooperation and policy research. The focus of the first stage of cooperation and research between the two parties will focus on improving energy efficiency, carbon capture and storage, and electric vehicles and green buildings. Wu Rong predicted that under this new form of cooperation, it will be very likely that the two countries will jointly possess patented technologies.