Who is the US-China Green Energy Council?

The United States and China now face daunting challenges in the areas of security, long-term economic sustainability and global warming. Energy is at the center of all three of these concerns and is perhaps the most important issue that must be solved in the coming decades. While there are no easy solutions, the answer clearly lies in increasing energy efficiency in the short term and developing sustainable, carbon-neutral energy sources over the long term. China and the U.S., as the worlds top two carbon emitters, need to find ways to collaborate and support each other in the urgent search for a global solution. We both need to develop a cohesive and sustainable collaboration that will yield realistic and effective solutions for achieving energy security, and economic and environmental sustainability.

The Berkeley Chinese Alumni International Association (BCAIA, www.bcaia.org), hosted Prof. Han Qide, Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of People’s Congress of China and President of the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST), for his visit to the San Francisco Bay Area in July 2007. He met with U.S. Congressman Mike Honda. They shared their views on the energy and global warming crises facing their two countries.  Both of them encouraged local leaders and organizations to do more to help facilitate US-China Green Tech collaboration and build a long lasting platform for non-governmental coordination and collaboration.  Steven Chu, U.S. Energy Secretary and Nobel Prize Laureate, is another key leader who inspired us with his “Call for Action” at the 2007 BCAIA Annual Dinner.

The US-China Green Energy Council (UCGEC, http://ucgef.org/) was therefore founded in Silicon Valley as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Its Chairman is Robert Shih Chiu Wu (Founding President of BCAIA) and its President is Robert Larson (Founding Partner of Woodside Fund and former President of IEEE). The UCGEC’s Honorary Chairman is Mike Honda, a U.S. Congressman and the Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee. The mission of the UCGEC is to facilitate and sponsor high impact Green Energy collaborative initiatives and projects between the U.S. and China, and to serve as a platform for the integration of policy, business, investment, research and educational projects for the two countries. The UCGEC’s member organizations include BCAIA, the Bay Area Science Innovation Consortium (BASIC), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California Office of the President, 1990 Institute, MIT/Stanford Venture Lab, Monte Jade Science and Technology Association, Silicon Valley Chinese Engineers Association, Huayuan Science and Technology Association, and others. The UCGEC’s Advisory Board includes green technology experts from CAST, China High-Tech Industrialization Association, China Renewable Energy Society, the Chinese Institute of Electronics, Tsinghua University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Tianjin University and prominent business, research, investment and policy leaders from the U.S. and China.

Since its founding, the UCGEC has sponsored and co-organized many high level US-China academic, business and governmental exchange activities. For example, in 2008, the UCGEC successfully organized US-China Green Energy Conferences and US-China Green Tech Summits in San Francisco, Shanghai, and Beijing. The UCGEC was honored to invite Prof. Han Qide and U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein to be the Honorary Co-Chairpersons for the Conference in Beijing. More than 1000 Chinese and foreign experts attended the conferences, including executives of Fortune 500 companies, entrepreneurial leaders, senior government officials, experienced investors and famous scholars. Many mainstream Chinese and Western news agencies (such as ABC and NPR from the U.S. and China Central TV, China Daily, and Sina from China) covered the conferences in detail. In July 2009, a UCGEC delegation, supported by its Honorary Chairman, Mr. Mike Honda, will go to Washington D.C. to visit U.S. Senators and Congressmen, U.S. Secretary of Energy Prof. Steven Chu, and U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Mr. Gary Locke. Also the UCGEC will organize the Second US-China Green Energy Forum on October 21 and 22, 2009 in Silicon Valley, California, USA.

The UCGEC has grown from its humble beginnings as a small group of like-minded individuals to a well-known global non-profit organization with deep ties in both the U.S. and China.  Although much larger today, the UCGEC still operates without the need for firm bilateral commitments between the U.S. and Chinese governments.  In the absence of such commitments, the UCGEC occupies the unique position of being able to broker communications between stakeholders in both countries allowing for more flexibility in managing differences and better collaboration on projects. The UCGEC, and more importantly its membership base of world class talent, will continue on its mission with the hope of one day achieving global environmental sustainability.