Clean energy industries from the United States and China complement each other and can achieve win-win through complementary cooperation, said an advocate for bilateral cooperation.
Their relationship should not be dominated by competition, and both sides should look at the bigger picture in dealing with the issue, said Wang Qi, chairman of the U.S.-China Green Energy Council (UCGEC), a non-profit organization.
It is not possible for the United States to achieve the target of carbon neutrality by solely relying on its domestic new energy products, which are quite expensive now and are not able to offer economic leverage, Wang said, noting that the price-competitive photovoltaic and wind power equipment from China instead offer a good path to U.S. carbon neutrality.
For instance, he said, California plans to realize carbon neutrality by 2045 and it won’t happen within such a short period of time without support from low-cost products.
China boasts the largest installed wind power and solar power generation capacity as well as the highest yearly electric vehicle production in the world, while California features smart and unmanned driving technologies and trading instruments in carbon finance and carbon market, said Wang, calling on the two sides to complement each other with their respective strengths in clean energy.
It’s very hard to have win-win results under the competition mode, he said.
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, UCGEC aims to promote and strengthen China-U.S. collaboration in green energy by facilitating high impact clean-tech collaborative initiatives and projects.