Visit by California governor would highlight climate cooperation potential

Gavin Newsom, governor of the US state of California, may soon visit Beijing to discuss climate change. If we take him at face value as someone who cares about the environment, and with California being in the vanguard of national if not global efforts to fight global warming, then visiting China is essential.

Although Washington is promoting tech-decoupling and financial de-risking, it's likely that environmental products and services will avoid such restrictions. This means that China and California may have more freedom to increase trade and investment serving environmental needs.

While China-US relations overall may continue to deteriorate, and while bilateral cooperation on the environment fails to gain traction at the national levels, we might instead see advances between Beijing and California, and possibly other US states as well.

China is now the leading producer of green energy and green energy products. Many places I visited recently in Europe featured homes and buildings covered with Chinese solar panels, responding to the energy crisis and the hottest summer on record. While some policymakers dislike depending on China to provide these products, China remains essential for green energy transitions worldwide.

Some Western media have criticized Newsom for his perceived willingness to cooperate with China on the environment, including disparaging China's climate record and commitment to fighting global warming.

In fact, more than a decade ago, China's central government became increasingly attentive to the environment in response to growing public complaints. This led to major reforms that have significantly improved air, water and food quality, and thus significantly improved the quality of life for hundreds of millions of people.

Separately, China also began to accelerate investment in green innovation and development. Initially this was strategic. Due to the oil, coal and automaker lobbies that continue to influence US policymaking, the US was lagging behind. China recognized this as an opportunity to become a global leader.

Furthermore, over the past decade China has become increasingly aware of the challenges associated with climate change. Several scientific studies indicate that China faces the greatest economic risks associated with global warming. This includes too little water in the northwest and too much in other parts of the country, with extreme weather events becoming more frequent and disruptive in both areas.

China also understands that climate change is still getting worse despite international attention. Russia, for example, seems unworried, and some studies indicate that Russia may actually benefit from a warmer world. Meanwhile, the US has been unreliable and perhaps disingenuous: Former president Donald Trump quit the Paris climate agreement, and President Joe Biden has expanded oil production, consolidating the US' position as the world leader in petroleum production.

Consequently, China realizes that confronting climate change is a matter of survival and that it can't count on others to lead. This is why it is aggressively expanding green innovation and development, cleanups and other initiatives that will help it and others survive in the future.

With this in mind, Newsom should check how Hefei, the capital of Anhui province, is restoring wetlands surrounding the city to serve as carbon traps while cleaning up the massive Chaohu Lake, led by a mayor who completed doctoral work related to environmental studies. The lake is being dredged, with toxins pressed into bricks and buried in exhausted coal mines. Meanwhile, the region is experiencing massive investment in green technologies. Some of the most advanced electric vehicle production plants in the world are now in Hefei.

Given the role that agriculture plays in California, Newsom might also talk about food production. One-fourth of China's arable land is terraced. Maintaining terraces is backbreaking work; but the terraced areas of Sichuan, Hunan and Yunnan provinces are essential for Chinese food security. Research suggests that these areas are among the most resistant to climate change. Consequently, many new projects are underway to study and improve the terraces, some at least 2,000 years old and perhaps twice that.

Can California contribute to these studies and help create technological solutions to make terraces more productive and easier to maintain? How might such lessons be shared with other countries that also depend on terraced agriculture? This is one of many topics that could guide increased collaboration, including greater cooperation with California's leading universities and technology companies.

If Newsom stops in Shanghai, he should check out the Suzhou River rehabilitation project. Essentially an open sewer snaking through the city a decade ago, it has been cleaned up and restored as a natural habitat. Fish and water birds have returned, and the city has constructed parklands running the length of the river. Or he can visit nearby Chongming Island, where conservation of a major wetland is the dominant feature, while another part of the island promotes organic farming. Or he can drive south on Donghai Bridge to see a long line of giant windmills turning with the ocean breeze.

But even if he stays in Beijing, he'll see a city transformed with an incredible expansion of green spaces. He'll see that most public transportation, taxis and increasingly personal vehicles are electric.

In short, Newsom has a strategic vision for a greener California, and there's a massive strategic vision for the same at work in China, one that has evolved substantially in recent years but is still greatly misunderstood by many in the West. Newsom could help correct this misunderstanding. Through increased cooperation, he can also help China and California save themselves and others.

The author is a professor of politics and international relations at East China Normal University and a senior research fellow with the Institute for the Development of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics at Southeast University.