Introduction to special issue on US-China EcoPartnership: Pathways toward decarbonizing economies to mitigate climate change

摘要

Carbon-based energy consumption and its environmental impact from released greenhouse gases (GHGs), such as carbon dioxide (CO_2) and leaked methane (CH_4), is now of immediate concern. In 2020, the recorded atmospheric concentrations of CO_2 and CH_4 were 416 and 1.89 ppm, respectively. However, CH_4 is 84 times more potent than CO_2, over a 20-year period, its CO_2 equivalency calculates to 158.7 ppm, a rather serious number that cannot be ignored. Notably, China (28%) and the United States (15%) are two largest emitters among all nations and together accounted for 15.47 billion metric tons of CO_2 release in 2018.* It was strategic that both countries come together in 2008 and signed the Framework for the Ten-Year Cooperation on Energy and Environment during the fourth Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED). The Ten-Year Framework (TYF) called for U.S.-China collaboration in seven priority areas: clean air; clean and efficient transportation; clean, efficient, and secure electricity; clean water; energy efficiency; protected areas and nature reserves; and wetlands conservation.t Later that year, the Framework for EcoPartnerships which set forth the objectives, principles, and structure of the U.S.-China EcoPartnerships program was signed during the fifth SED. Over the decade the program was in existence, a total of 37 projects were successfully completed. One key aspect of the program was to bring together participants from public, private, and civic sectors to work as project partners. As for dissemination of results among officials and project investigators, the official protocol was to host the EcoPartnership results-sharing meeting during the annual bilateral SED event that alternated between Washington and Beijing, the last one held virtually in September 2020. Since the projects are of wider interest to the scientific community, it was decided to publish the findings from the ongoing projects in refereed journals. The first special volume titled: "U.S.-China EcoPartnerships: Approaches to Challenges in Energy and Environment," was published in 2015 and included 18 papers authored by partners from both the U.S. and China.