US President Barack Obama will visit China in November and the two sides are likely to sign a treaty to explore opportunities in clean energy cooperation, according to the US side.

The working groups from both sides have prepared the agenda and will work on the details of the document before the treaty is finalized.

"We are in the process of working on a deal the US President will sign when he visits China in November," Stan Barer, co-chair of the US-China Clean Energy Forum, said at a meeting to discuss the cooperation agenda yesterday in Beijing.

Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, who is currently visiting the country, said the US and China "must and can" work together to deal with the urgency of exploring cooperation in clean energy and environmental issues.

She called environmental and clean energy cooperation "game changers" in the Sino-US relationship after Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao earlier agreed that climate change was the "primary area" of cooperation between the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitters.

"I am very optimistic about the cooperation as a great deal of work between us has been done," Pelosi said.

She said her delegation was in China to learn from the government, NGOs and academia their views on environmental protection, climate change and energy utilization. "Even small children have shown the urgency (to do so) and we can and must shoulder our responsibility for our countries and the planet," she said.

Zhang Jianyu, Beijing head of the US-based Environmental Defense Fund, was one of the representatives that discussed the issue with Pelosi and her delegation. "In terms of environmental cooperation, I think the momentum between China and the US is strong and I hope the leaders of both sides have the wisdom to push it forward," said Zhang.

Both countries have appointed working groups to identify priorities for clean energy cooperation in a bid to pave the way for China and the US to sign the treaty in November.

"The US side has worked out an eight-point agenda and we have proposed to work in three areas," Han Wenke, head of the China working group, told China Daily.

Han, who is also the director of Energy Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission, said the working groups have achieved some results, which can be used by the governments of both sides when they conclude the deal.

(China Daily May 27, 2009)