Climate Special 19: Steady States (I)

Continuing our series on combating climate change, today we’ll present the first half of our story on how climate cooperation between China and the US at the subnational level may prove even more important than originally thought amid the persistent turbulence of the national bilateral relationship.

Transcript

Steady States (I)

Continuing our series on combating climate change, today we’ll present the first half of our story on how climate cooperation between China and the US at the subnational level may prove even more important than originally thought amid the persistent turbulence of the national bilateral relationship.

At the North Bund Forum on shipping and aviation held in Shanghai in October 2024, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, Eugene D. Seroka, referring to the green shipping corridor (or GSC) partnership between the cities, said “If we’re able to reduce the emissions between Shanghai and the twin ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles by 10 percent, that’s equal to all the pollution in the port of Los Angeles for one year. Amazing!”

At the forum, the Port of Los Angeles-Port of Long Beach-Port of Shanghai Green Shipping Corridor Partnership annual progress report was released, a year after the three ports kicked off joint efforts to reduce carbon emissions on one of the world’s busiest shipping routes.

Shanghai has continuously improved its port shore power capacity and facilities, enhanced capacity for clean energy refueling and continues to diversify fuel bunkering, which is when a vessel refuels for its own use. Los Angeles and Long Beach ports are engaging with potential fuel and bunkering service providers and encouraging adoption of cleaner marine fuels.

In January 2022, Los Angeles and Shanghai ports and the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (called C40 for short), a global network of leading cities that have united to tackle the climate crisis, announced a partnership to build a green shipping corridor to decarbonize goods flows, which was later joined by Long Beach Port. In September 2023, the GSC partnership released an implementation plan outline that set the goal of deploying the world’s first zero lifecycle carbon emission container ships by 2030. The maritime route between Los Angeles and Shanghai is one of the most dynamic in the world, with nine international container liner routes operating vessels every week.

The GSC partnership between Shanghai and Los Angeles-Long Beach is a typical example of bilateral subnational climate cooperation based on pragmatic needs, demonstrating the potential of subnational cooperation, even though the world’s two biggest carbon emitters are struggling to cooperate bilaterally on carbon reduction goals amid geopolitical uncertainties.

Green Shipping

Chen Boping, C40 regional director for East Asia (China), told NewsChina that as members of the C40, Shanghai and Los Angeles are actively engaged in coping with climate change.

In July 2023, the International Maritime Organization set a zero-emission goal for around 2050. Chen said, “It’s a global trend, and China has been encouraging green shipping development. Shanghai is striving to become a world-class international shipping hub by 2025 with a strong focus on low-carbon transition. Los Angeles has also been engaged in the low-carbon development of its ports to reduce pollution and improve the city’s air quality. Whether it’s Shanghai or Los Angeles or [a member of the] C40, we have one common desire – advancing the low-carbon development of ports.”

She said the green corridor between Shanghai and Los Angeles is the first to cross the Pacific, which is very demanding technologically. The GSC partnership involves not only cooperation between two ports and two cities but also shipping companies, cargo owners and fuel suppliers. “It’s a very pragmatic cooperation involving many partners,” noted Chen, adding that she is happy to see the initiative proceeding steadily despite multiple challenges.

She acknowledged that the pragmatic partnership has evolved through the fluctuations of bilateral relations, adding “This gives us more hope for future climate cooperation.”

Liu Daizong, East Asia director at the Institute for Transportation & Development Policy, an international nonprofit organization, said the cooperation aligns with the global trend of green shipping. Liu told NewsChina, “Transportation, including shipping that involves cross-regional movement, naturally serves as a bridge between ports, enabling them to work together toward reducing carbon emissions, and you can’t do this alone.”

Regional Efforts

Despite the ups and downs, states and cities from the two countries continue to work together. California is just one of the US states to continue climate communication and cooperation with China.

In 2017, former California governor Jerry Brown met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and signed a series of climate- and energy-focused agreements with China’s government departments and provincial governments. This strengthened early ties between China and California in climate cooperation.

Dai Fan, director of the California-China Climate Change Institute (CCCI), a University of California-wide initiative at UC Berkeley chaired by Jerry Brown, said that when China launched carbon market pilots in seven regions 10 years ago, California worked closely with Guangdong, Beijing and Hubei to help design their programs.

“We provided suggestions about program design, how we design our cap and the allocation of the cap, how we do benchmarks and conduct options. It’s very practical cooperation,” said Dai, who used to work for the California state government.

China’s new green building regulations have drawn upon California’s Title 24 standards – a set of building codes that ensure energy efficiency, and Beijing’s air-quality management policy has also been informed by existing mechanisms in California.

The CCCI was launched in September 2019, led by Jerry Brown and China’s former Special Envoy for Climate Change Xie Zhenhua. The initiative aims to boost subnational communication and cooperation on climate change and energy-related issues. It plays a significant role in bringing California and Chinese provinces and cities together for climate communication and hosting provincial delegations from China.

In October 2023, the CCCI helped organize California Governor Gavin Newsom’s visit to China, the first visit of a US state governor to China in four years. While visiting Hong Kong University, Newsom assured that regardless of the US election outcome, his state would continue to partner with China on climate issues.

During that weeklong trip, Newsom visited Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Guangzhou in Guangdong Province, Beijing, Shanghai and Yancheng, a coastal city and manufacturing base for offshore wind power in Jiangsu Province, to promote engagement on climate change. This trip led to California’s Memorandum of Understanding with Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong and Jiangsu on enhancing communication and cooperation in climate change.

Dai Fan, who accompanied Newsom on the trip, said, “These agreements focus on everything from joint efforts to decarbonize the power and industrial sectors and deploy more clean-energy technologies, especially offshore wind projects and zero-emission vehicles, to spur cooperation around climate adaptation and resilience.”

Other initiatives between California and local Chinese governments include a pilot program in Shanghai on rice methane reduction and one in Guangdong on landfill methane reduction. The wind energy demonstration projects in Yancheng will serve as a benchmark for the development of offshore wind projects along California’s coast, according to Dai.

In May 2024, California held the China-US High-Level Event on Subnational Climate Action in Berkeley. The event, hosted by CCCI, attracted over 200 top national, state, provincial and city leaders from the two countries. This served as a high-level event on subnational climate action as announced in the 2023 Sunnylands Statement on Enhancing Cooperation to Address the Climate Crisis.

There was substantive discussion on issues like offshore wind development and how to advance climate finance and carbon markets. The event also saw the launch of the US-China Bay to Bay Dialogue (between the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and the California Bay Area) which focuses on building green and low-carbon bay areas through policy and action, sharing development opportunities and promoting people-to-people exchanges.

Li Chao, spokesperson for the National Development and Reform Commission, said at a press conference in Beijing in June 2024 that the event marked an important step towards (quote) “institutionalizing, specifying and pragmatizing their cooperation on climate change, and the vision of China-US climate cooperation is being translated into real action at the subnational level.” 

Offshore wind companies from Jiangsu and Guangdong joined the event, Dai told NewsChina, adding that the CCCI plans to invite them to California for workshops to share what they are doing. Dai said, “In California, we are good at setting the policies and targets and vision. But the capacity to manufacture things is really China’s strength. That’s why we see a lot of these solutions could be implemented at a much faster pace if the two could be combined despite geopolitics.” 

Dai told NewsChina that the challenge was obvious when the CCCI was established during the first Trump presidency. But the institute has been trying to, in her words, “fill the gap and keep everything alive.” Dai said, “We think it’s very important to keep the channel open during the Trump era. In California, the leadership has been very consistent about the importance of tackling climate crisis and working with China.” 

That concludes part one of our two-part podcast emphasizing climate cooperation at the sub-national level, and we hope you’ll tune in next time for the conclusion. Our theme music is by the famous film score composer Roc Chen. We want to thank our writer Xu Ming, translator Du Guodong, and copy editor Pu Ren. And thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, please tell a friend, so they, too, can understand The Context!