US Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) is headed to Beijing next week. She’ll be in town meeting with her Chinese counterparts to  strategize ways the two countries might work together toward reducing CO2 emissions while creating business opportunities in the process (Read about her initative in the Seattle Times).

While she’s in town, Senator Cantwell will be the keynote speaker at AmCham’s March 17th symposium on clean energy, which is open to chamber members and non-members alike.  The half-day symposium will bring together China and US experts to examine the issues surrounding energy consumption and will address ways to eliminate these barriers to improve efficiency reduce carbon emissions. 

In the first session panelists will consider whether or not China and the US are actually rivals in the battle over energy resources.  During the second session energy experts will put forth recommendations about how, given the potential for competition, the two nations can translate their good intention to clean up the environment into concrete action.

Presentations will be in both Chinese and English. Simultaneous translation will be available.