Skip to main content
Support
Article

CEF Director, Jennifer Turner, was Interviewed by the Takeaway on the historical China, US Climate Deal Made in APEC

CEF Director Jennifer Turner was interviewed by the national news program Takeaway on the historical US - China deal on climate change and energy cooperation, which was sealed in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit yesterday in Beijing, China.

CEF Director, Jennifer Turner, was Interviewed by the Takeaway on the historical China, US Climate Deal Made in APEC

Two of the world's largest carbon polluters, United States and China have reached a landmark agreement on climate change and energy cooperation. In the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit held in Beijing, China, President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping have set new targets to cut carbon emissions by 2030. The US says it will emit 26 to 28 percent less carbon, and China vowed to have 20 percent of its energy production come from clean sources. CEF Director, Jennifer Turner, was interviewed by the Takeaway Program about the new deal.

“This is very significant,” Jennifer Turner said, “really to the US and China very important climate relationship.” According to her, China has taken a lot of actions to try to address their coal problem. Their actions are accelerated in the last couple of years because of the horrible air pollution, often contributed from coal.

One of the challenges for China to address is although it has been ramping up in clean energy production, its electricity consumption keeps doubling. “It’s a race. Even though they are building up a lot of clean energy, they are using a lot of electricity,” said Turner. However, she thinks both hardware infrastructure and new rules and regulations will help China to put more pressure on coal sector and make it even more efficient.

Turner believes the US and China’s climate and energy cooperation will benefit China to move their efforts in this direction even faster. “The Chinese have shown that they are shifting to try to become a much more low carbon economy,” she said.

For the full-length audio, please click here

Related Program

China Environment Forum

Since 1997, the China Environment Forum's mission has been to forge US-China cooperation on energy, environment, and sustainable development challenges. We play a unique nonpartisan role in creating multi-stakeholder dialogues around these issues.  Read more