Partnership stressed to combat climate change

As the world's two largest emitters of greenhouse gases, the United States and China need to build trust to address climate change and its impact on public health despite geopolitical tensions, experts said.

Highlighting the importance of partnerships and collaboration, Deborah Seligsohn, a professor in the Political Science Department at Villanova University, said both nations have enormous healthcare and research capacities to deal with climate challenges.

"There's still technical questions where scientific cooperation is needed. We should come up with solutions that can help the rest of the world," Seligsohn said at a forum at The Carter Center in Atlanta.

Seligsohn stressed the potential for collaboration between the U.S. and China in developing efficient systems to address issues such as leakage from old coal mines, waste management and methane capture as part of their joint efforts to tackle climate change.

"The incredible achievement that China has made in improving air quality, along with regulatory changes in 2020 and the dynamics of global shipping, has a huge impact to confront the overall warming trend," she said.

2023 shattered climate records, accompanied by extreme weather, as reported by the World Meteorological Organization. The agency's global climate report said 2023 is poised to become the warmest year on record.

A study published in Nature Climate Change found that 58 percent of infectious diseases worldwide have been worsened by climatic hazards, concluding that the answer is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"Infectious diseases even for noninfectious ailments spreading through climate change is striking," said Jeffrey Koplan, a principal investigator of the International Association of National Public Health Institutes, and former director (1998-2002) of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

As a 26-year veteran of the CDC, Koplan said the health alliances of people and scientists from the U.S. and China have maintained a high level of cooperation over the years.

He recalled spending the first couple of hours every other Wednesday morning engaged in discussions with colleagues at Fudan University in China, even when there was no funding for the program.

Fostering positive aspects

"I think the most important thing is to keep those networks of people together," he told the conference. "The friendships and partnerships among scientists that have been maintained should persist in fostering positive aspects."

The narrative of health alliances between the two countries unfolded with the initiation of the U.S.-China Working Group on enhancing climate action.

In October, California Governor Gavin Newsom joined the "Great Wall Climate Dialogue" in Beijing along with his Chinese counterparts. They discussed ways to accelerate climate action at the subnational level.

Specifically, the leaders shared strategies for clean energy deployment, electrifying transportation and tackling climate change while growing the economy.

The U.S. and China renewed dialogue on the climate in November ahead of COP28 — the United Nations Conference on Climate Change — to collaborate on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and promoting the adoption of renewable energy sources.

The new agreement revealed before a meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden in California on Nov 15 marked a positive turn in their collaborative journey.

"That is the actual major victory of COP28," Seligsohn said. "And that's where I have huge optimism because both countries have put in place many of the tools necessary to move faster than the current pace."

Seligsohn noted, however, that there still were people within the U.S. government questioning the progressive approach, such as California's collaboration with China. Despite the internal debates, "it's really important to endorse the most effective programs and get us back on track together".

She said there also are "tons of people" within the scientific community expressing "genuine desires to work together", despite the "negative impact" on the collaboration stemming from political tensions.

"I think the key thing for the U.S. government getting back to engage in this is to provide scientists with a sense of protection, mitigating the vulnerability they felt over the past few years," she added.