U.S., China strike climate-change agreements

[Geee]

Washington Examiner:

Secretary of State John Kerry hopes he has found a partner to take to the climate-change dance, and her name is China.

 

Kerry is in Beijing for the United States-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, a bilateral series of negotiations that involve top-ranking officials from both countries. The two countries struck deals on eight climate-change projects this week, and China agreed to set more stringent emissions standards for vehicles and greenhouse gases.

 

"This effort has to be mutual," Kerry said Thursday. "It’s not about one country making a demand of the other. It’s the science itself demanding action from all of us, and in that regard, we stepped up together in the last two days."

 

Of the eight agreements signed this week, four of them are joint carbon capture and utilization projects, and the other four are smart-grid efforts aimed at reducing electricity consumption. That's key for China, which the International Energy Agency says will still account for 60 percent of coal growth over the next five years despite taking more stringent measures to move away from it.