US Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke are visiting China this week in an effort to persuade the country to work together with the United States to address global warming. The two Chinese-American officials will meet with senior 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, which many environmental experts hope will focus on the importance of joint US-China action before the global climate treaty meeting in Copenhagen in December. Cooperation between the two countries is seen as essential for the success of efforts to reach a new global climate agreement. According to Kenneth Lieberthal, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institute, the potential for collaboration is significant and the need for action is urgent. "It's not a situation where one party benefits while the other pays. China has now become the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide and other gases that contribute to global warming, surpassing the United States. However, its per capita emissions are still lower. Chu, a Nobel physicist with a focus on climate change, is expected to advocate for joint US and Chinese efforts to address rising global temperatures in a speech at Tsinghua University in Beijing. He emphasized the urgent threat that climate change poses to our way of life, comparing it to a climatic shift as significant as the last Ice Age but in the opposite direction. Locke, a former governor of Washington, is keen to highlight opportunities for China to reduce emissions through the use of US renewable technologies like solar, wind, and water power." A Commerce Department official stated that there are significant market opportunities for companies in China due to a high demand, but also challenges. China heavily relies on coal for its energy needs, while the United States has large coal reserves and uses it for a smaller percentage of its energy needs. Both countries have an incentive to work together on developing technologies to capture carbon dioxide emissions and store them underground, rather than releasing them into the atmosphere. David Sandalow, assistant energy secretary, highlighted this as a top priority in an interview with Reuters before a trip to China. "We are of the belief that we can achieve more by collaborating rather than working independently." The United States is paying attention to China's efforts in building new nuclear power plants. President Obama is urging Congress to pass a bill to reduce US greenhouse gas emissions, with the hope that China will agree to cap emissions at the December 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, the lead US negotiator for the Kyoto climate treaty in 1997, which was never ratified by the US, emphasized the importance of China's cooperation. While Chu and Locke are not heading to Beijing for talks on a bilateral climate agreement, the US is hopeful that closer collaboration with China will lead to a positive outcome in Copenhagen, according to Sandalow. China, along with 16 other major world economies, recently agreed to limit the global temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels. However, China has chosen not to establish a short-term emission reduction target, citing its recent industrialization and the need to prioritize growth and urbanization efforts for its population, which mostly lives in poorer conditions 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 set a goal of having renewable energy account for 15 percent of total energy demand by 2020. The Obama administration needs to urge Beijing to turn these goals into enforceable global agreements as a starting point, according to Eizenstat. He also mentioned that China will eventually need to commit to emission limits, but it is unlikely to happen at the upcoming meeting in Copenhagen this December.