China has made major technological advancements in the energy storage and electric vehicle sectors, and US companies could be at a disadvantage if US policies preclude them from cooperating strategically with Chinese companies, an expert said.

In an online discussion about cooperation between the United States and China on climate change, Joanna Lewis, director of the Science, Technology and International Affairs Program at Georgetown University, said the two countries need to expand cooperation.

The event on Tuesday was presented by the Center for American Progress.

Lewis said political and economic tensions between the US and China are high, and that "is exactly when engagement on climate change is of the utmost importance" to avoid "derailing all the progress that we've made in our engagement with China" over the last 30-plus years.

She said US engagement with China on climate change and clean energy has helped to build up China's own capacity to track and reduce its emissions, as well as its ability to promote "a low-carbon energy transition".

"And today, we see that China has leapfrogged many other countries in these areas, and our bilateral exchanges have become much more of a two-way street," Lewis said. "I also see that engagement has led to increased ambition, transparency and trust between our two countries."

She said US President Joe Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act, which she said moved the US in the right direction of making clean energy industries more competitive globally, "may have gone too far in terms of completely excluding Chinese entities from participating in the US clean energy sector".

"I think there has to be a conversation about our respective roles in global clean energy supply chains without just letting it devolve into a global trade war that will slow the low-carbon transition globally," she said.

Lewis visited China this summer for the first time since the pandemic, meeting with Chinese officials and touring China's new clean energy manufacturing facilities. She said she witnessed how China is leading the world in some aspects of green technologies.

She said there are ways that are smart and protect national security, but also allow "us to leapfrog and take advantage of a lot of the real impressive innovation that we're seeing coming out of China", Lewis said.

She said the US should also have conversations with China on tough issues such as trade and research or it could risk derailing cooperation on climate change.

"We need to hit that head-on. I think it's silly to make engagement on basic science a political issue," Lewis said.