On the heels of the historic U.S. China Climate Leaders Summit ICLEI USA and ICLEI East Asia China office gathered with leading experts from China and California to launch the California-China Urban Climate Collaborative (CCUCC) at an event in Los Angeles.
The event was highlighted by remarks from high-level government officials in California and China; Mr. Brian Peck, Deputy Director of International Affairs and Business Development, representing Governor Jerry Brown’s office and Mr. Jiang Zhaoli, Deputy Director General Department of Climate Change China National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).
Mr. Jiang expressed his desire that NDRC, Chinese cities, ICLEI and others work together to make tangible achievement, and communicated his wish that all will attend the next U.S. China Climate Leaders Summit in Beijing in 2016.
The CCUCC event included a tour of the Los Angeles CleanTech Incubator at the incubator’s newly renovated building – designed to reach LEED platinum. The building offers flexible office space to clean tech entrepreneurs and will house a customer service station where LA Power and Water customers can pay their bill and view energy-saving devices in demonstration labs on site.
Later, at the Loyola Marymount University, local government leaders ICLEI USA Board member and Santa Monica Council Member, Pam O’Connor, and Tang Jie, Former Deputy Mayor of Shenzhen welcomed the guests.
In remarks from other CCUCC partners, Genevieve Herreria, California Manager, California-China Office of Trade and Investment stressed California’s positive economic outcomes resulting from its investment in clean tech and her office’s role in helping businesses to plug in to the clean energy economy in the state as well as in China.
“If you make cities better for people, the city will naturally be low carbon.” remarked Energy Foundation China Senior Vice President,China Strategy and Analysis, Dr. Jiang Lin. Energy Foundation China provided start-up funding for the project.