The world is turning its eyes to Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, where world leaders are gathering to come up with a vigorous response to combat one of the greatest challenges of our time.  The mission of the United Nations Climate Change Conference is nothing less than to “save the planet.”  In particular, the focus will be on China and the United States, the two largest polluters in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.

In fact, just in time for the conference both China and the United State set new emissions targets to be achieved by 2020.  For China, the goal is to bring down its “carbon intensity,” or the greenhouse emits per unit of GDP, by 40 to 45 percent from the 2005 level, while the emissions from the United States will be reduced “in the range of 17%” from the 2005 level.

As the joint statement between the U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao indicated, “As the two largest consumers and producers of energy, there can be no solution to this challenge without the efforts of both China and the United States.”

Indeed, the stakes are too high if the two countries do not work together.  During their 2008 Strategic Economic Dialogue, both countries already signed a 10-year energy and environment cooperation framework, including clean, efficient, and secure electricity production and transmission as one of the goals.

The Obama administration has followed the determinations of its predecessor to work with the Chinese on climate change.  In July 2009, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Energy Secretary Steven Chu, two Chinese American cabinet members, visited China to inaugurate a Sino−U.S. clean energy research center as the first government-level institution to promote the use of clean energy.  The two governments will commit at least US$150 million to this project within five years.

Now it is the time to take concrete action.  For China, the difficulty is not a lack of funds, but an urgent need for critical technology.  As China continues to grow its economy and its electricity continues to depend mainly upon coal, it will inevitably build more coal-based power plants, which means it will emit more greenhouse gases.

Even with the new target of relative carbon intensity reduction, China’s output of absolute carbon dioxide is expected to increase by about 90 percent if its economy grows by 8 percent.  Therefore, energy efficiency improvement holds the key to China’s overall reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and its contribution to significantly slowing global climate change.

Because of this, China has for years sought clean energy technology, especially ultra-efficient coal gasification technology, from the United States.  A recent agreement between China’s state-owned Shenhua Group, a diversified energy enterprise with major business around coal production, sales, electricity and thermal generation, and General Electric of the United States finally signaled a very promising first step toward collaboration on that.

In the meantime, Westinghouse, a U.S. company, will provide its third-generation pressurized water reactor technology to China so as to greatly increase China’s ability to generate electricity in a clean, safe, and economical manner.

Of course, helping China to combat climate change offers a huge opportunity that U.S. business cannot afford to ignore.  It also will generate “green” jobs in the United States.  Again, if the United States is hesitant and reluctant, as it has been in transferring military-related technology to China, other countries with the appropriate technology that China needs will certainly make the first move.  Consequently, a “win-win” for both China and the United States could be turned into a “win-loss” situation.