US Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke are visiting China to encourage the country to work together with the United States in fighting global warming. The two Chinese-American officials will meet with Chinese leaders in Beijing to discuss the benefits of collaborating to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This visit is seen as a precursor to President Barack Obama's upcoming trip to China, where experts hope he will emphasize the importance of joint action between the two countries before an important meeting in Copenhagen in December. Cooperation between the world's largest developed country and the world's largest developing country is seen as crucial for the success of a new global climate treaty. Kenneth Lieberthal, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institute, emphasized the significant potential and urgent need for such collaboration. "It's not a situation where one party benefits while the other suffers." China has recently surpassed the United States as the largest emitter of carbon dioxide and other gases responsible for global warming. Even though its per capita emissions are still lower, Chu, a Nobel physicist who has focused on climate change, will advocate for US and Chinese collaboration to address rising global temperatures in a speech at Tsinghua University. He warned US senators of the unprecedented threat posed by climate change, comparing it to a climatic shift as significant as the last Ice Age but in the opposite direction. Locke, a former governor of Washington, aims to demonstrate ways for China to reduce carbon emissions using US renewable technology like solar, wind, and water. A Commerce Department official stated that there are significant market opportunities for companies in China due to a high demand in the country. However, there are also major challenges to be faced. China heavily relies on coal for its energy needs, while the United States has the largest coal reserves in the world and uses coal for about 22 percent of its energy. This creates an incentive for the two countries to work together on technology to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions underground. David Sandalow, assistant energy secretary for policy and international affairs, emphasized the importance of this collaboration. "We believe that by working together rather than separately, we can achieve more." The United States has taken notice of China's efforts to build new nuclear power plants. President Obama is urging Congress to pass a bill to reduce US greenhouse gas emissions, with pressure on China to agree to a specific emissions cap at the upcoming meeting in Copenhagen. Without China's commitment, it is unlikely that a new climate change treaty will be approved by the US Senate. Stuart Eizenstat, who led US negotiations for the Kyoto climate treaty in 1997, which was never ratified by the US, emphasized the importance of cooperation with China for a successful outcome in Copenhagen. China, along with 16 other major world economies, recently pledged to limit the global temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels. However, China has opted not to establish a short-term emissions reduction target. The reasoning behind this decision is that China is still a relatively new industrializing country, and stringent caps on emissions could impede growth and urbanization efforts, especially in areas where living conditions are significantly poorer compared to Western countries. Despite this, China's latest five-year plan aims to reduce energy intensity by 20 percent by the end of 2010, and the country has set a goal of having renewable energy account for 15 percent of total energy demand by 2020. Eizenstat suggested that the Obama administration should urge Beijing to turn these goals into enforceable global agreements as an initial measure. He pointed out that China will need to eventually agree to set limits on emissions, but that is unlikely to happen during the upcoming December meeting in Copenhagen.