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USAID Launches U.S. - China Climate PartnershipWednesday, December 30, 2009 The U.S. Agency for International Development is launching a $6-million initiative to speed the adoption of energy efficiency and greenhouse gas (GHG) reducing technologies and practices in two of China's most industrialized provinces.The three-year US-China Partnership for Climate Action, funded by USAID's Regional Development Mission for Asia (USAID/RDMA) and implemented by the U.S.-based Institute for Sustainable Communities (ISC) and World Resources Institute (WRI), will build the capacity of industries, the electric power sector, and cities in Guangzhou and Jiangsu provinces in collaboration with China's national and provincial government agencies. This public-private initiative will bring together leading Chinese and U.S. energy and climate experts to share energy solutions. The program will target the largest sources of GHG emissions – industry and electricity – as well as cities, which are the fastest-growing source of new emissions. The program's partners estimate that 8.4 million metric tons of CO2 emissions will be averted annually as a result of this program. Better results may be achieved by building on the program's innovations. Private contributions comprise an additional $3.4 million for the initiative. Supporters include GE, Citibank, BP, SC Johnson, and Wal-Mart. Key Chinese partners include the Guangdong Economic and Trade Commission, the China Electricity Council, the Energy Research Institute, the China Clean Development Mechanism Fund, and Tsinghua University. Other U.S. partners include the GE Foundation, the Regulatory Assistance Project, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. "We expect this initiative to motivate Chinese businesses, power companies, and cities to take big steps forward in adopting a green economic agenda," said Acting USAID/RDMA Mission Director Barbara Krell. "This partnership will link clean energy experts from the business community and leading policy and research institutions in the U.S. and China." The US-China Partnership for Climate Action – building on the success of ISC's ongoing Guangdong Environmental Partnership, also partly funded by USAID – will expand the use of GHG measurement standards and tools, build capacity to use them, and help integrate them into public policy frameworks and the emerging environment, health, and safety (EHS) management profession. The first component of the program, Clean Energy and GHG Accounting in Industry, will combine ISC's Environment, Health, and Safety Academy with WRI's GHG Protocol Initiative to improve the capacity of energy intensive industries to significantly reduce their energy and carbon footprints. The second component, Driving Clean Energy in the Power Sector, will identify and work to remove barriers to increasing energy efficiency in the power sector, and will help stimulate and scale up public-sector financing mechanisms for clean-energy initiatives. The third component, Scaling Up Clean Energy in Cities, will enable Chinese cities to broaden clean-energy models through peer-to-peer networking with U.S. counterparts. This builds on ISC's Climate Leadership Academy model, which equips municipal leaders in the U.S. with the skills and expertise to implement large-scale energy-efficiency programs. "The US-China Partnership for Climate Action is more than the sum of its parts," said George Hamilton, president of the Institute for Sustainable Communities. "We expect that the cross-fertilization of activities in the three sectors – industry, power, and cities – will also spur new opportunities for action as the program gains momentum." | |||
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