What’s the Deal with the U.S.-China Climate Deal?

Slides: What’s the Deal With the US China Climate Deal?

Aired on 11/25/2014 – In light of November 2014’s climate negotiations between U.S. President Barack Obama and China President Xi Jinping, the Security and Sustainability Forum convened global experts to discuss the negotiations, and their historical and potential significance in light of existing and expected U.S. and China policy.

Some were heralding these diplomatic moves as historic steps in the right direction for climate security, and others doubted the agreement was a game changer. While the climate negotiations between the presidents of the world’s largest economies could set an important example to other national leaders at the 2015 Paris Convention, it many questions. This webinar addresses many of the early questions that were on everyone’s mind and added context to the international politics behind climate security.


The Speakers

Peter Saundry

Session moderator Peter Saundry, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE), a non-partisan organization of scientists, environmentalists, entrepreneurs, and policy makers working to improve the scientific basis of environmental decision-making. Dr. Saundry is an experienced leader in building coalitions of individuals and organizations to promote environmental science and its utility in addressing societal concerns.

Robert Perciasepe

Robert Perciasepe is President of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES) and former deputy administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Bob, has spent more than 30 years as an environmental policy leader in and outside government. In addition to holding several senior posts at EPA, Perciasepe served as Maryland’s Secretary of the Environment and was the chief operating officer of the National Audubon Society.

Tom Peterson

Tom Peterson founded the Center for Climate Strategies (CCS) in 2004 to help governments and stakeholders understand and formulate responses to climate change. Over the past decade this included developing and implementing a widely recognized template for comprehensive, multi objective, consensus based planning and analysis that led to the development of 22 US state plans, national scale up and integration of subnational climate action plans in the US, the Low Emissions Development System for the six Border States of Mexico, and the Low Carbon Development Planning and Analysis System for the Provinces of China.

William Schulte

William Schulte is a Fellow at the U.S.-China Partnership for Environmental Law (PEL) at Vermont Law School. The PEL program supports a broad range of capacity-building activities in environmental and energy law through partnerships involving U.S. and Chinese universities, government agencies, and nongovernmental organizations. Prior to PEL, he practiced environmental law in the public interest in Newark, New Jersey where he represented environmental and community groups on matters related to environmental permit reviews, environmental justice, air pollution reduction, watershed protection, and energy infrastructure proposals, among others.

Sponsored by Willdan Energy Solutions.