It looks like Hillary Clinton is going to make China her first stop abroad as secretary of state, with energy and climate issues expected to figure prominently into talks. Todd Stern, the new climate envoy, tells The New York Times that one of his main goals (in the Times' words, not his) is "to end the endless sparring between the two giant sources of greenhouse gases over who needs to do what first." Andy Revkin also points to a new upsurge of reports trying to think through how, exactly, to get China and the United States to stop waltzing around each other and actually move forward on carbon emissions. We're a long, long way from solving the problem, but these are good early signs.
--Bradford Plumer