Environment China

Renewable energy is the key to reducing China's carbon emissions, and for many years experts have seen electricity markets as essential to the promotion of clean energy.  In this episode, we check in with a leading U.S. expert on China's power sector, Michael Davidson, to discuss two recent papers he has published on the topic of power markets and renewable energy in China. Michael Davidson is an Assistant Professor in the School of Global Policy and Strategy and the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California San Diego. His research and teaching center on the engineering implications and institutional conflicts inherent in deploying low-carbon energy at scale, with a particular focus on China, India, and the U.S. He holds a PhD in engineering systems from MIT and was previously a research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School.   For further reading: http://mdavidson.org/ Hongye Guo Michael R. Davidson, Qixin Chen. Da Zhang, Nan Jiang, Qing Xia, Chongqing Kang, Xiliang Zh

In today's podcast, we talk to two private sector experts working on the topic of corporate ESG - which refers to corporate policies and performance on the environment, sustainability, and governance. In the first part of the episode, we focus on the policies that have driven companies in China towards greater emphasis of ESG, and which companies are working most seriously on the topic of ESG. We discuss the process of certifying the first project in China under a new international ESG standard for infrastructure. And we close by examining what's next for ESG in China. Our first guest is Dang Anqi. Anqi is an ESG and sustainable investment analyst at Allianz France. She is leading the climate-related financial disclosure and the Sciences Based Targets Initiative at Allianz Investment Management. Her report on  sustainable investment won the International Climate Reporting Awards in 2019. (Link: https://www.allianz.fr/content/dam/onemarketing/azfr/common/marque/pdf/BROCH_AZ_AIM_REPORT-2020-EXE_1507.pdf.)  Our

You have probably heard China's carbon market described as the largest carbon market in the world. That's only proper, since China is the largest carbon emitting country and the carbon market will cover the coal power sector, which accounts for around half of the country's emissions.  2020 was originally billed as a major year for climate policy, both globally and in China. Where does China's carbon market policy stand and how is it likely to evolve during the 14th Five-Year Plan period? What announcements should we expect this year? Our first guest is Stian Reklev, co-founder and reporter with Carbon Pulse, which provides news and intelligence on global carbon markets. He is based in Beijing, where he has covered emissions trading markets and climate policy across the Asia-Pacific region since 2009, first for Point Carbon and then for Reuters, before setting up Carbon Pulse in 2015. Our second guest is Yan Qin of Refinitiv, who is based in Oslo. Yan Qin is a power and carbon analyst with extensive experience

It's been a busy year for energy policy in China, and we're only in the beginning of July. This summer and fall are crucial periods in the design of the 14th Five-Year Plan, and many listeners are already aware that there are big issues at stake for climate and the environment. In today's podcast, we're releasing the audio of a Beijing Energy Network webinar held in mid-June. Recent Environment China podcast host Anders Hove and China Dialogue's Wu Yixiu delivered a joint presentation covering a lot of important details of this process. Topics touched on include: Recent renewable energy trends in China. Why China is seeing a wave of new coal plant approvals. Whether wind and solar are likely to grow in 2020, and how much. Whether China will enhance its climate ambition or adopt a carbon cap. What the new energy law and clean energy consumption mechanism drafts are all about. Some reading: The 14th Five-Year Plan: What Ideas are on the Table? https://chinadialogue.net/climate/11434-the-14th-five-year-plan-w

In this week's podcast, we sit down with Chloe Dempsey to talk about meat, alternative protein, and the environment in China. Chloe is a research fellow at the Cellular Agriculture Society and Yenching scholar at Peking University, where she is completing a Master’s of Economics. Chloe’s thesis focuses on the market for cultured meat in China, with a focus on consumers. Chloe also has an interest in alternative protein, sustainable food solutions and agriculture across Asia, Oceania and Latin America. Chloe comes from both Australia and Ireland, both countries whose key exports to China are agricultural and food related. Chloe has previously lived in Brazil and has supplementary qualifications in philanthropy and social impact design. Chloe’s undergraduate studies were in Law and International relations, and over the last four years she has studied, worked and volunteered across Greater China and the Asia Pacific in commercial law and for environmental and social causes.  Since 2016, Chloe has been predomina

Asia is the world's top region for infrastructure investment, and these investments need to be sustainable in order to meet the Paris Climate Agreement goals and the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). A fair number of standards now exist to help investors assess the sustainability of infrastructure, and one of those specific to the debt market is green bonds.  In today's episode, we sit down with Xie Wenhong, China Program Manager at the Climate Bonds Initiative. Wenhong has experience working on development and energy in Southeast Asia, and previously worked under Dr. Ma Jun at the Center for Finance and Development of Tsinghua University. He holds an MA in International Policy Studies from Stanford University.   Show notes: Greening China's Bond Market, by Sean Kidney: https://www.iisd.org/sites/default/files/publications/greening-chinas-financial-system-chapter-10.pdf Introduction to China's green bond market in China Dialogue (2018): https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/10387-Int

Energy security was already a hot issue in China well before the global oil price collapse and Covid crisis. Now, as the country listens to the government list its coming priorities during the long-delayed Two Sessions of the National People's Congress, energy security is topic Number One. In this episode, we sit down with Dr Michal Meidan, Director of the China Energy Programme at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (OIES), to talk about China, energy security, and oil and gas markets. Before joining OIES in July 2019, she headed cross-commodity China research at Energy Aspects. Prior to that, she headed China Matters, an independent research consultancy providing analysis on the politics of energy in China. She is the author of numerous academic papers, articles, and books related to China, energy, and political economy. Dr Meidan is also a past speaker at the Beijing Energy Network and has memories of BEN going back over a decade.   Show notes:   China Key Themes for Energy in 2020 (written in January)

This is the second part of a two-part episode featuring Lauri Myllyvirta, an air pollution and climate expert from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. Lauri has over 10 years of experience as an air pollution and climate expert. He has led numerous research projects on air pollution, assessing air quality and health impacts of energy policies, including more than a dozen modeling studies of the air quality and health impacts of coal-fired power plants. Lauri has also contributed to numerous publications around energy solutions and air pollution. He served as a member of the Technical Working Group on regulating emissions from large combustion plants in the EU. He lived in Beijing for many years and was previously a senior member of the Greenpeace East Asia team based in Beijing. In this segment, Lauri and Environment China host Anders Hove discuss some of the issues and questions raised by Lauri's presentation and his other research.  

This is the first part of a two-part episode featuring Lauri Myllyvirta, an air pollution and climate expert from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. Lauri has over 10 years of experience as an air pollution and climate expert. He has led numerous research projects on air pollution, assessing air quality and health impacts of energy policies, including more than a dozen modeling studies of the air quality and health impacts of coal-fired power plants. Lauri has also contributed to numerous publications around energy solutions and air pollution. He served as a member of the Technical Working Group on regulating emissions from large combustion plants in the EU. He lived in Beijing for many years and was previously a senior member of the Greenpeace East Asia team based in Beijing. In this segment, Lauri has recorded a video of a presentation he made recently on the impact of Covid-19 on air pollution worldwide as well as the potential for a green stimulus to make this economic recovery focus on more

China, like other major countries, is actively working on measures to stimulate the economy and recover from the coronavirus. The question is, how can China make its stimulus measures as green and beneficial for the economy as possible? In this episode, we cover what types of stimulus have been done in the past, what the principles should be for green stimulus, and what ideas each of us have for how green stimulus could be done this time in China. Finally, we talk about whether it’s likely to actually happen. Guests are: Dimitri DeBoer, who started and leads the china office of Client Earth, a European NGO focused on environmental law, which works with the Ministry of Ecology and Environment as well as the Supreme People’s Court helping with training of environmental judges. Dimitri is also special advisor to the CCICED, the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development. Wu Yixiu, who leads the Climate communications team with China Dialogue. She has been following and writing abo

In this special mini-episode of Environment China, we again talk to Li Shuo of Greenpeace, following up on his earlier interview on the Biodiversity COP, as well as discussing how the recent crisis in China could affect the country's policies and efforts on the broader topics of biodiversity, wildlife protection, and climate change.   Li Shuo references a column by recent podcast guest Lauri Myllyvirta, of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, available here: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-coronavirus-has-temporarily-reduced-chinas-co2-emissions-by-a-quarter   Here is another article illustrating graphically how the reduction in industrial activity has influenced emissions, as observed by satellites. The question is, will additional stimulus lead emissions to rebound even more strongly?  https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-01/air-pollution-vanishes-across-china-s-industrial-heartland

Although Beijing still frequently suffers from stretches of heavy air pollution, the city has made astonishing improvements since the Airpocalypse of 2013, when for several days readings of PM2.5 (particulate matter less than 2.5 microns in diameter, the most dangerous type of pollution in regional air pollution) literally went off the charts of the U.S. Embassy air quality monitor, which tops out at the U.S. EPA Air Quality Index value of 500. Today, Beijing averages around 40-50 micrograms of PM2.5 per cubic meter over the course of a year. That's still worse than international standards (the World Health Organization guideline is 10 micrograms/m3 on an annual basis for PM2.5), but showing steady improvement since 2013, when the annual average was well above 100. Progress elsewhere in China has been less dramatic. In this episode, we sit down to discuss air quality in Beijing and China with Lauri Myllyvirta, Lead Analyst with the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA). Lauri has over 10 years of

In this episode, our panel sits down with Edmund Downie to discuss China’s vision for a Global Energy Interconnection, or 全球能源互联网 in Chinese. Downie is an energy analyst with the Analysis Group in Boston, and former Fulbright Scholar at Yunnan University in Southwest China.  In past roles with Yale and the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi, Downie has written extensively on South and Southeast Asia political and social issues, including for Foreign Policy magazine. While many Western analysts are skeptical about the Global Energy Interconnection plan, and its fantastical map of a world crossed by ultra-high voltage transmission lines stretching from New Zealand to Greenland and everywhere in between, Downie takes a nuanced view: “There are many things that GEI can achieve reflecting the interests driving GEI… The key is to think of [GEIDCO, the Global Energy Interconnection Development and Cooperation Organization] as a planning and research body that’s occupying a niche between global energy governance

Biodiversity loss and climate change have may of the same causes: ecosystem destruction both releases carbon into the atmosphere and shrinks the area available for threatened species to survive. Nature-based solutions are emerging as a framework to address these challenges together. Most recently, China and New Zealand were named co-chairs of the Nature-Based Solutions Track for the Climate Action Summit, one of nine areas the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is focusing on for solutions to the climate crisis. In this podcast, we sit down with Xi Xie from the Nature Conservancy to discuss Nature-Based Solutions in China and China's role in promoting NBS worldwide.  Xi Xie is the Climate Change and Energy Director for TNC China. She has 12 years of experience working on international climate efforts, both in government and NGO roles. She holds a bachelor's degree and a master's degree from Xi'an Jiaotong University. In the show, participants discuss a paper written in part by authors from TNC, Bronson

This week we join past guest and recent host, Anders Hove, for a journey to Inner Mongolia, Northern California, and Central Europe, where he recently tested the charging infrastructure on three long-distance electric vehicle road trips. We examine how EVs compare on fueling cost, emissions, and convenience, and discuss how the experience compared across the three regions, along with potential recommendations for policy-makers. Anders is a non-resident fellow with Columbia University's Center for Global Energy Policy as well as Project Director at GIZ China.  He is the co-author with Prof David Sandalow of Columbia University of the recent paper "Electric Vehicle Charging in China and the United States": https://energypolicy.columbia.edu/research/report/electric-vehicle-charging-china-and-united-states https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/11172-Electric-vehicle-charging-What-can-the-US-and-China-learn-from-each-other- Yiyang Chenzi and Cynthia Wang serve as co-hosts this week. We hope you en

Li Shuo, Senior Global Policy Advisor at Greenpeace East Asia, gives a preview of the biggest issues on the table at the climate COP (Conference of the Parties) this year in Madrid, and what role China will likely play in the proceedings.  Li Shuo's official bio: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/person/li-shuo Li Shuo on Twitter: https://twitter.com/lishuo_gp?lang=en Link to COP 25 official web page: https://unfccc.int/cop25 (Note: episode republished due to sound issues.) The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is a carbon trading mechanism that has enabled developed countries to offset their own emissions by investing in or purchasing credits from carbon reduction projects in developing countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Development_Mechanism.  

China's data centers currently consume over 2% of China's electricity production and that share is growing quickly. In today's episode, we sit down with Greenpeace East Asia's Ye Ruiqi to discuss how some companies are turning to renewable energy to meet the growing need for clean energy to power data centers.  A link to the report Powering the Cloud: How China's Internet Industry Can Shift to Renewable Energy, from September 2019, can be found here: https://www.greenpeace.org/international/press-release/24112/electricity-consumption-from-chinas-internet-industry-to-increase-by-two-thirds-by-2023-greenpeace/  Ruiqi is a climate and energy campaigner from Greenpeace East Asia, and covers topics like China’s renewable energy development, power market reform, and IT sector sustainability. Before joining Greenpeace, Ruiqi worked as a grassroots organizer at the US Public Interest Network after graduated from University of California Santa Barbara. In the episode, we reference Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs). You

Professor David Sandalow is the Inaugural Fellow at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy. Prior to Columbia, David served in senior positions in the US government – at the White House, State Department and US Department of Energy. He’s also served in various roles at the Brookings Institution, the Clinton Global Initiative, and the World Wildlife Fund. In this episode we discuss developments in China climate policy over the past year, as well as the most recent news concerning China’s carbon trading system as well as a prominent speech on energy security by the Premier of China, Li Keqiang. David Sandalow, Guide to China Climate Policy 2019, Columbia University https://energypolicy.columbia.edu/explore-guide-chinese-climate-policy-2019-david-sandalow https://www.amazon.com/Guide-Chinese-Climate-Policy-Sandalow/dp/1726184307 Yao Zhe and Tom Baxter, The 14th Five Year Plan: what ideas are on the table? China Dialogue, August 2019 https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/11434-The-

We sit down to talk about the recent history and far future of urban planning and design in China and worldwide with Sebastian Ibold, Project Director for the project Sino-German Cooperation on Low Carbon Transport, GIZ. Sebastian has a rich past life as a consultant on urban planning issues and consulting in Asia, and his current work relates to rethinking urban mobility, shaping the city around an integration of the needs of users, technology, and sustainability.  At the end of the episode, we play a scenario analysis betting game based on a report, "The Politics and Practices of Low-Carbon Urban Mobility in China," from the Centre for Mobilities Research, Lancaster University, and the Graduate School at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University. The report is available at https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/42416653.pdf.  The episode's title is from a poem by William Cowper: https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/god-made-country. Sebastian references Dutch-American sociologist Saskia Sassen. Her biography, bibliography, and var