China and U.S. Collaboration on Climate Change with Professor Steven Chu

The Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions (SCCEI) and the Stanford King Center on Global Development held a special event on the potential for China and U.S. collaboration on climate change. 

China and the U.S. are critical for global action on climate change. Together, the two countries created up to 40 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2019, and both countries have significant global influence. This event highlights several important challenges for climate action at the start of the Biden Administration. How can China-U.S. cooperation on climate be revived in light of the current bilateral relationship, in particular for fostering innovations in both technologies and policies for mitigating climate change? 

The special event featured Steven Chu, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Physics and Professor of Molecular & Cellular Physiology in the Medical School at Stanford University, and was moderated by Gretchen C. Daily, Bing Professor of Environmental Science and co-founder and faculty director of the Natural Capital Project at Stanford University. 

Watch the recording:

Following the lecture, SCCEI and the King Center hosted a virtual reception for audience members to continue the conversation in small breakout rooms. The Zoom meeting link was distributed at the end of the lecture.

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About the Speakers:

Steven Chu is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Physics and Professor of Molecular & Cellular Physiology in the Medical School at Stanford University. He is currently the Chair of the Board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and its past President. He has published papers in atomic physics, polymer physics, biophysics, molecular biology, ultrasound imaging, nanoparticle synthesis, batteries and other clean energy technologies.

He served as U.S. Secretary of Energy from January 2009 through April 2013. Prior to that, he was director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, professor of Physics and of Molecular and Cell Biology (2004 to 2009) at UC Berkeley, the Francis and Theodore Geballe professor of Physics and Applied Physics at Stanford University (1987 to 2009), a member of the technical staff and head of the Quantum Electronics Research Department at AT&T Bell Laboratories (1978 – 1987).

Dr. Chu is the co-recipient of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to laser cooling and atom trapping. He received numerous other awards and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and 8 foreign Academies. He received an A.B. degree in mathematics and a B.S. degree in physics from the University of Rochester, and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, Berkeley, and 32 honorary degrees.

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Gretchen Daily is Bing Professor of Environmental Science and co-founder and faculty director of the Natural Capital Project at Stanford University.  Her work focuses on understanding the dynamics of change in the biosphere, their implications for human well-being, and the deep societal transformations needed to secure people and nature.  She engages extensively with governments, multilateral development banks, businesses, communities, and NGOs. Daily co-founded the Natural Capital Project, a global partnership that is integrating the values of nature into policy, finance and management globally.  Its tools and approaches are now used in 185 nations through the free and open-source Natural Capital Data & Software Platform.  Daily has published several hundred scientific and popular articles, and a dozen books, including Green Growth that Works: Natural Capital Policy and Finance Mechanisms from Around the World (2019).  Daily is a fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and has received numerous international honors for her work.

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Event Sponsors:
Stanford King Center on Global Development
Stanford Center on China's Economy & Institutions

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