Talk Radio News Service: News, Politics, Media

By Leah Valencia, University of New Mexico – Talk Radio News Service

The Joint U.S.-China Cooperation on Clean Energy, a non-profit aiming to reduce China’s carbon footprint, is collaborating with Chinese mayors in a training program that teaches city leaders to reduce their environmental impact.

“China is developing so quickly and at such scale,” said David Mohler, senior vice president and chief technology officer for Duke Energy. “We saw a real opportunity to work with our Chinese counterparts.”

According to JUCCE China’s urbanization rate rose from 20 to 44.9 percent between 1980 and 2008. JUCCE said maintaining a clean national power grid for China’s 600 million population is an admittedly difficult task.

“Almost no matter what China does... it is going to set the curve for what happens with climate,” Mohler said. “Being the number one and number two emitters of CO2 globally, it became clear to us that we really need to work together to address the issue.”

The JUCCE mayoral training program provides workshops that train leaders in working with companies that can assist them in implementing more energy efficient programs and technologies in their cities.

“China is at a point where they do not need to be lectured on why to go green, they know that,” said Peggy Liu, chairperson of JUCCE. “What they want is a solution handed to them on a silver platter and that is what we are trying to do.”