U.S. and Chinese bilateral cooperation was reinvigorated in 2009 with nine clean energy agreements signed by Presidents Obama and Hu. Expanding clean energy cooperation between the world’s two largest energy consumers will be essential in lowering the costs to transition the world into a low-carbon growth model. Making this shift will demand collaboration of the government, NGO, research and business sectors to promote clean energy policies and technologies—a cooperative process that currently faces some crucial market and policy obstacles. Promising areas for the two countries to promote low-carbon development and jobs include: scaled renewables, power grid modernization, carbon capture and sequestration, and shale gas exploration. Furthermore, as both countries face growing confrontations between energy development and water resources, a new and untapped issue for bilateral cooperation will be to create policies and governance mechanisms to encourage energy technologies that are both low carbon and water efficient.

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奥巴马总统与胡锦涛主席于2009年签署的九项清洁能源协议重新激活了中美两国的双边合作。在全球两大能源消耗国之间扩展清洁能源合作对降低全球向低碳发展转型的成本至关重要。该转型需要政府，非政府组织，研究与企业部门之间合作发展清洁能源的政策与技术,而这一合作过程目前正面临着一些严峻的市场与政策挑战。中美两国促进低碳发展与就业的领域包括：可再生能源发展规模化，电网现代化，碳捕获与封存，以及页岩气勘探。此外，在中美两国能源开发与水资源之间的对抗持续加剧的情况下，双边合作中的一个崭新待决的问题便是制定政策与管理机制，以鼓励发展既低碳又节水的能源技术。