We met Professor Kiang, the Founding Dean of the College of Environmental Sciences, Beijing University at the World Future Council. The scientist was quite outspoken about the need of his country for solutions in energy supply and climate protection. The future of mobility however in his country lies in electric bikes, Kiang said. There are already 100 million electrical bikes in China. China is eager to tackle climate change, Kiang emphazises. But this issue is far to big to be handled by China alone, he added. Clean coal technologies are not available yet, Kiang said, to lower CO2 emissions drastically. To find the technical solutions it needs global efforts.

Back home Professor Kiang is responsible for bringing to China many of the world's leading experts on sustainable development, both to educate the next generation of leaders and to develop a working case study in the south of China. He is an internationally recognized expert on air quality, Professor Kiang retired from the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) as an Institute Professor where he was responsible for its environment science, engineering and policy program, one of the top 5 in the USA. Mr. Kiang is currently working with others to establish a Center of Northeast Asia for Peace, Security and Sustainability initiated by Maurice Strong. He has also been very active in trying to get China and the US to cooperate on tackling climate change.

Jesse Johnson runs Q Collection - a sustainable furnishing company in New York. In his showroom on Broadway we saw the fine materials and design sustainable chairs and curtains are already made of. Seven years ago Jesse started this business - with quite no audience giving a *** on sustainable furnishing. He and his colleagues undertook the venture of explaining the advantages of sustainable living - such of having no chemicals in your textils. Today Q Collection is growing: Their design is amongst other things visible in some Hotel chains in the US. The label will now launch baby furnishing.

The seismograph of social change in the USA is the economy. National trust in the mechanisms of the market is often greater than in political forethought. The current trend is toward environmentally compatible industries, toward renewable energy technology and sustainable design. Fund managers are looking right now for investment opportunities in the energy technology sector. Furniture designers like Jesse Johnson produce beautifully designed furniture without chemicals additives.Business representatives are surging into the political arena. At the end of January this year ten large companies, including the energy corporations BP America and General Electric, the chemical corporation DuPont, and the construction and mining equipment manufacturer Caterpillar have founded the United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) in Washington D. C. On their Web site the group issues a “Call for Action”. They maintain that the challenges posed by climate change will create more economic opportunities than risks for the US economy. If legislators don’t take immediate action, then the business world must step in with market-driven approaches. And, incidentally, the environment will profit from that.

Lots of folks are very quick to critize that the US isn´t really doing much to protect the environment. But when you look closer, this isn´t true at all. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) carbon monoxide emissions between 2000 and 2004 increased by 1.7 percent in the largest economically advanced nation under the sun, while in the member states of the EU during the same time period the average increase was 5 percent - even though economic and population growth was higher there than in the countries of the European Union.An overall American agenda for climate and environmental protection does not exist. Many of the states, on the other hand, have created new realities through amendments that have come into force regardless whether the state is governed by Republicans or Democrats. In Wyoming and Alaska energy consumption per capita is far above the US average, while in California and the New England State of Rhode Island on the east coast it is so low that these two states can keep pace with international comparisons in their handling of resources and exhaust emissions.California, the most populated and economically powerful state in the USA, is the trendsetter in environmental legislation. For generations the people in West Virginia have lived from coal mining. Here an acceleration of environmental laws is not given much support for obvious reasons.Seven states in the northeast – Delaware, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York and Vermont – joined together in 2005 as a Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). They want to reach a ten percent reduction of carbon dioxide emission by the year 2018.

The member States of the Regional Greenhouse Gas InitiativeThe federal government appears to be altering the focus of their climate change policies. Already in 2006 President Bush lamented the dependence of American on oil imports. In the meantime the White House seems to be convinced that climate change is expedited by humankind. In spite of this the US government is not setting a maximum limit to toxic emissions, but is relying rather on the promotion of innovative technology and environmentally compatible energy sources.

American President Bush and Brasilien President da Silva after signing an agreement on economic cooperation at Mar 10th 2007The world’s largest quantity of environmentally sound ethanol is produced from corn in the USA. President Bush recently signed an agreement on economic cooperation with the Brazilian president. Brazil is the world’s second largest producer of ethanol.