So far, the basic rundown is that the EU is setting the pace for commitments and plans to battle climate change. For months now China has been taking its cue from the EU on many fronts and decisions. And the U.S., well, the U.S. has a climate change bill that is weakened and stalled out in the senate and a whole lot of environmental bickering.

I have been writing about and analyzing what has been going on between these superpowers for months, and it strikes me as strange to read that U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke are planning to visit China and put some pressure on China to, according to Reuters, “Join with the United States in stepped-up efforts to fight global warming.”

To which I can only say… What? 

The United States is a lot of things, and even a lot of good things, but we are not a leader in fighting global warming or climate change or anything related to environmental health or progressive ecological politics.

Chu and Locke are both Chinese-American cabinet officials in Washington, and their journey to Beijing this week is an attempt to add a personal connection to a political union between the U.S. with China to battle global warming.

President Obama will be traveling to China before the end of the year as well. This visit will serve as a prelude to Obama’s more formal request for a combined effort from the U.S. and China on the road to Copenhagen.

The idea is that the U.S. is the world’s largest developed country and China is the world’s largest developing country.

"The potential is very large and the need is very serious. It's not one of those things where one side benefits and the other side pays." Said said Kenneth Lieberthal of U.S. think tank the Brookings Institute.
So, a U.S. think tank believes that it is very important for China to work with the U.S. to battle climate change. Beyond the geo-political hypocrisy, there are good intentions. I will give them that.

Chu has a history as a physicist who has worked with climate change issues, which gives him great authority on the matters at hand.

The biggest issue to be discussed will be the future of coal and the coal industry. The U.S. has the world’s largest coal supply and China uses coal for over 2/3 of its energy.

A big deal- both as a business and as a potential for high-impact partnership in the future of battling climate change. Whether making agreements on carbon emissions or decisions on how global cap and trade laws and markets will work, the future of business, coal and the Earth rests on meaningful forward motion from the two biggest polluters (and hence most powerful economic) countries.

The U.S. is pushing for shared emissions caps that will, in my opinion, keep competition and development right around where they are now. China basically feels like they have been developing for decades fewer than the U.S. and so shouldn’t have to abide by the same rules.
We’ll see what the EU has to say about all of this.