California-China efforts seen as key on carbon aims

California can play a role in helping the United States and China achieve carbon neutrality amid a chill in bilateral relations, a former governor of the state said.

“We are mutually vulnerable to climate change, ... we have a shared goal and shared opportunity to work together to address climate change,” Jerry Brown told a recent online forum hosted by the University of California, Berkeley.

As governor, Brown visited China in 2017. During that trip, he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and discussed climate change and other topics, when then-US president Donald Trump renounced efforts to battle global emissions.

“We are very much engaged and related, in the most intimate way, with China,” said Brown, now chairman of the California-China Climate Institute. “Therefore, we have to figure out how to work this relationship and not exacerbate it in a way that could lead to a conflict.”

Brown said the US and China have a shared responsibility to fight global climate change.

“The US has put more CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than anybody else — America is the No 1 contributor,” he said.

California also faces significant climate problems, including drought and reduced humidity, which has caused devastating wildfires in the state, said Brown.

“We are in a world where we’re sharing the effects of climate change,” he said.

“But together, China and the US have a great opportunity to solve their common problem — the habitat destruction, the species extinction, the acidification of the ocean.”

Dan Farber, professor of environmental law at UC Berkeley, said that when national action has been on-again, off-again in some countries like the US, states and cities have stepped up to play a major role.

“A state like California may be able to work with China at times when the federal government may be hindered by unrelated geopolitical issues, or frankly by ideology,” he said.

California is a pioneer on a number of climate change policies, including on carbon markets. The state’s capand-trade program has been operating since 2013 and is one of the largest carbon markets in the world.

China announced its emissionstrading system in 2011 and two years later established regional pilot programs in Beijing, Chongqing, Shanghai and other cities.

Exchanges between climate officials from California and China started in 2013, according to the California-China Climate Institute.

Another initiative is the carbon neutrality project, which is aimed at trying to scope out for both countries the stages for reaching carbon neutrality, said Farber.

California has established targets for carbon neutrality by 2045; the US and China have pledged to achieve that status by 2050 and 2060, respectively.

We are very much engaged and related, ... We have to figure out how to work this relationship and not exacerbate it in a way that could lead to a conflict.”

Jerry Brown, chairman of the California-China Climate Institute