This past weekend, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrapped up her first foreign diplomatic trip with a visit to China. While a number of issues crowded the Secretary’s plate on this trip—including staving off the global financial crisis—Sec. Clinton placed climate change issues in the center of her diplomacy. Joined by her top climate envoy, Todd Stern—profiled by ClimateIntel here—the Secretary reiterated her, and the U.S.’s, commitment to engagement on climate change issues at every stop on her diplomatic tour.

Especially notable was Sec. Clinton’s schedule in China, where she visited a new cogeneration plant using high-efficiency gas turbines built for the Chinese by General Electric, and made a speech promoting sustainable growth and urging the Chinese to not “make the same mistakes [the United States] made, because I don’t think either China or the world can afford that.” Sec. Clinton also stressed that while the United States had long been the world’s largest emitter of heat-trapping gasses, the Chinese had recently taken that position. While China’s per-capita emissions remain significantly lower than the United States’, much of the world continues to express serious concerns on the growth in China’s absolute emissions.

Engagement with China could not come at a more crucial time, as the nation is rapidly becoming a major player in renewable energy. According to a report produced for this January’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, renewable energy investment in the developing world has boomed in the past five years, with China alone investing $10.7B in renewable energy in 2007 (this excludes large-scale hydro projects such as the Three Gorges dam). That investment has paid off; in 2008, China completed its fourth consecutive year of doubling its installed wind energy capacity, installing over 6GW of new capacity—nearly a quarter of the total new capacity installed throughout the world.

Outside groups are also pushing for U.S. engagement with the Chinese; on the eve of Secretary Clinton’s trip, the Pew Center on Global Climate Change released a report detailing their road map for U.S.-China cooperation on emissions control. (Read the full report here.)

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