It’s been a week since President Trump announced withdraw from the Paris Agreement and China has already taken the lead from the U. S.
Just a week after President Trump announced his decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, China has already wrestled the mantle of leadership on climate change from the United States.
In a high-level meeting of energy ministers in Beijing this week, China played the convening role in bringing together countries from across the globe for a discussion on how to deploy clean energy. The meeting had been scheduled long before Trump’s decision on the Paris Agreement, but the timing sent a clear message about who will lead the fight to address climate change in the coming years. During the four-day meeting, China launched a number of initiatives to advance clean energy and announced partnerships with other governments around the globe to fight climate change.
“I didn’ t come to Washington, I came to Beijing, ” said California Governor Jerry Brown after announcing a joint clean energy effort with Chinese leadership, according to a New York Times report . “Well, someday I’ m going to go to Washington, but not this week.”
The annual clean energy meetings originally began in the early days of the Obama presidency under the leadership of then-Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who hosted the first meeting in Washington, D.
