This week, the Center for American Progress will bring a delegation of CAP energy and climate experts to China. This delegation plans to discuss critical issues in the U.S.-China climate relationship and learn directly from Chinese officials, nongovernment experts, and university groups what China is doing on energy and climate policy in the run-up to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, conference in Paris this December.
CAP has been deeply engaged in U.S.-China relations since 2009, expanding the frontier of U.S.-China cooperation and seeking new and innovative ways to study, analyze, and engage one of the most important bilateral relationships of the 21st century. CAP’s strong and growing China program has focused on making U.S.-China climate cooperation a critical pillar of the relationship. We view China’s ability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and energy demand as vital to the global effort to combat climate change.
A key element of CAP’s work on China is our ongoing series of staff research trips to China, which we engage in multiple times per year. These trips give a broad array of CAP experts the opportunity to discuss with Chinese counterparts new ideas for climate cooperation and to monitor China’s progress on climate both domestically and internationally.
On this week’s research trip, the CAP delegation will meet with experts from the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs, or CPIFA, as well as with additional Chinese organizations and universities as arranged by CPIFA. As part of this trip, the Center for American Progress expert delegation will participate in the China Center for International Economic Exchanges’, or CCIEE’s, fourth global think tank summit, an international summit in Beijing focusing on global sustainable development in 2015 and beyond.
CAP experts participating in the research trip include CAP founder and board member John Podesta, Director of China Policy Melanie Hart, Vice President for Energy Policy Greg Dotson, Senior Fellow Pete Ogden, Senior Fellow Cathleen Kelly, Director of Ocean Policy Michael Conathan, Senior Fellow Joe Romm, and Special Assistant for Energy Policy Erin Auel. Podesta will also deliver remarks at the CCIEE summit.
CAP will join a group of representatives from more than 50 international think tanks at the CCIEE summit. Other notable representatives include former Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, former European Commission President and Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and 2011 Nobel Laureate Thomas Sargent. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to address the summit via video message.
For additional information on previous CAP dialogue programs in China, see:
For additional information on CAP’s climate work, see:
The delegation this week is another opportunity for CAP to continue its years-long effort to provide valuable policy recommendations and analysis on U.S.-China relations and Chinese climate policy.
Melanie Hart is the Director of China Policy at the Center for American Progress and a member of the CAP delegation to Beijing.