Primer on Beijing’s Slice-and-Dice Approach to Energy and Climate Reform
Whenever U.S. and Chinese government officials meet to discuss opportunities for cooperation on energy and climate change, those discussions often boil down to questions about timing, at least from the...
View ArticleThe Bumpy Road to China’s Shale Revolution
While China’s National Energy Administration recently revised its fuel-switching agenda, Michal Meidan points out that this policy alteration is not a sign that the government’s commitment to shale is...
View ArticleWhat China Is Doing to Clear the Air and Fight Climate Change
Responding to a report by the Nikkei on China’s environmental pollution, Feng Zhaokui acknowledges China’s struggle with the environment and addresses how ecological and environmental issues are not...
View ArticleBeijing’s Bear Hug on Russian Oil
Russia’s desire to cushion the impact of recent Western sanctions combined with China’s attempts to reduce its reliance on oil imports from the Middle East has created an opportune partnership for the...
View ArticleNo Copenhagen Déjà Vu
China and other large, carbon-emitting nations were absent at the UN Climate Summit in New York, signaling contravention with the global community’s call to develop cleaner energy sources to combat...
View Article2014 APEC: Catalyst for Global Climate Change Action?
Can China provide intellectual leadership on climate change and green infrastructure? While Chinese President Xi Jinping may be missing this year’s UN Climate Summit, Stewart Taggart explores the...
View ArticleControlling CO2 Emissions Starts with China and Clean Coal
The US, China and India compose about half of all global CO2 emissions. Through “dirty coal” import bans and new technological advances, China hopes to decrease its 2020 carbon emissions by 45% from...
View ArticleHow China Made Its Climate Change Decision, and Why It Will Stick
The consensus amongst the political elite in China since the 11th Five Year Programme issued in 2006 has been that climate change is a reality, and that its fiercest impact will fall on their country...
View ArticleWill US Be Able to Deliver on Its Deal with China to Reduce Carbon Emissions?
Since China and the United States are the two biggest national emitters of carbon, the recently announced bilateral agreement is considered essential to concluding a new global accord, because unless...
View ArticleChina’s South-North Water Transfer Project: An Unsustainable Diversion
The South-North Water Transfer Project represents an impressive feat in human engineering to bring between 4 and 20 percent of Yangzi river water to the water-scarce North China. However, as Britt...
View ArticleCarbon Reduction: A Challenge for Both China and US
The commitments made at the Xi-Obama summit to reduce CO2 emissions are significant yet challenging for both nations to carry out over the next decade. The U.S. faces a more conservative Congress, and...
View ArticleWhy the World Not Excited about Obama’s New Power Plan?
The ambitious U.S-China climate proposal created new emissions standards for U.S. domestic power plants, which will reshape the power sector on a state-by-state basis. The 30% CO2 reduction target is...
View ArticleWill Climate Commitment Constrain China’s Economic Growth
Chinese economists predict growth will slow from the current 7% to around 5% if China's carbon emissions are to peak in 2030. Qi Ye posits that climate commitment may constrain China’s economic growth...
View ArticleBuilding a Cleaner China from the Grassroots Up
Increasingly, China’s local environmental groups are finding themselves well positioned to ensure governmental support for environmental improvement and accountability. The national government of China...
View ArticleRide the Early Tides of a Sea Change
Newly adopted climate mitigations have caused China’s coal and electricity consumption to fall the first time this century. Coal and heavy industries were the most targeted sectors, which has led to...
View ArticleChina and the World Meet Historic Opportunity for Green Economy
This is significant for human society. In the past 20 years, though achievements have been made in the areas of education, alleviation of poverty etc., the progress has been very slow in terms of the...
View ArticleChina Dream: a Lifestyle Movement with Sustainability at Its Heart
It is hard to imagine that China could one day lead the world in going green when you look at the smog-filled skies that are everyday reality there. The government knows that energy fuels the growth of...
View ArticleChina Buys Canadian Energy: Lessons for the U.S.
China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) this week offered to buy Canada’s Nexen, Inc., for $15 billion. Nexen’s board is recommending the bid to shareholders. If completed, this would be the...
View ArticleObama Slapdown on Chinese Wind Deal Sends Wrong Message
President Obama became the first president in 22 years to issue a formal order blocking a foreign investment into the United States on national security grounds when he stopped a Chinese company from...
View ArticleEconomy and Environment Top of Agenda for China’s New Leaders
To keep the country growing and provide the lifestyle benefits their citizens are asking for, China’s new leaders must shift the economy toward a new growth model and also get serious about cracking...
View ArticleLike Its Peers, China Scrambles to Cope with Climate Change
Following less than productive discussions at the Doha Climate Change Conference, recent reports have warned the Earth’s temperature continues to rise as climate change worsens. While many developed...
View ArticlePollution Forces China to Transform its Mode of Economic Growth
Severe weather forced China to transform its mode of growth by creating a sustainable economic and energy system conditions.
View ArticleThe Impact of the Changing Global Energy Map on Geopolitics of the World
The shale gas revolution is unfolding, and is expected to have a profound impact on global geopolitics in the coming years, writes Feng Zhaokui.
View ArticleShale Gas Will Transform Geopolitics
The development of shale gas technology is expected to rapidly change the global energy landscape, world economy and geopolitics, as we know it. As the United States prepares to become a major exporter...
View ArticleShale Gas: The Key in the US’ Asia Pivot?
Energy has long been both the bane and the favored instrument in the foreign policy of governments. Yet, for the US, fortunes are changing and the goal of former President Nixon’s Project Independence...
View ArticleAmerica Can Help China Clean-up Its Environment
These days China is in the center of any conversation about sustainable development and environmental degradation, writes Tom Watkins. The country has much work to do in order to balance economic...
View ArticleChina Must Exploit Its Shale Gas
Awaiting confirmation to head the Energy Department, Ernest J. Moniz must balance the desire to develop and extract new sources of energy with the need to cut greenhouse gas emissions and minimize...
View ArticleThe Chinese Scramble into Greenland Over-hyped
Greenland believes its ticket to prosperity is the wealth of minerals and rare earths below its slopes. Jonas Parello-Plesner discusses the potential for China’s investment to turn Greenland into a...
View ArticleThe Gas Bonanza in Mozambique
Meeting with Mozambican President Armando Guebuza in Beijing, Chinese President Xi Jinping continues to cement China’s economic and trade relations with emerging economies in Africa. As China’s...
View ArticleGlobal Competition For Energy Resources on Leaders’ Agenda
The competition between the US and China for energy resources is growing. China, the world’s largest energy user, is trying to play catch up on decades of research and development, stronger...
View ArticleEnergy and “Strategic Trust” at the Xi-Obama Summit
The "shale gas revolution" of the US looks to be capable of offering many different opportunities for Washington. It will substantially lower the amount of oil that the US imports from the gulf. It may...
View ArticleUS-China Climate Change Battle Could Prolong Life
According to new evidence, there is a devastating trade-off between coal-fueled economic growth and human life expectancy. Any progress in the U.S.-Chinese climate change talks could pave way for a...
View ArticleObama’s Climate Position and his “Grand Strategy”
If China and the United States are able to further their negotiations on climate change, it will further inspire global efforts to reduce pollution and clean up the environment, writes Zhao Xingshu.
View ArticleChina Tightens Air Pollution Standards
As climate change and air pollution levels continue to make news, Walker Rowe examines the air pollution debate from an historical context – laying out how the United States has progressed since the...
View ArticleChina and Russia Form an Enduring Partnership
The 30-year, $400 billion gas contract, signed between Russia’s state-controlled Gazprom and China during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Shanghai to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping...
View ArticleChinese Coal Cuts
China accounts for half of the worlds coal consumption, which greatly contributes to its 30% share of global CO2 emissions. Decreasing reliance on coal is part of China’s progress for reaching the...
View ArticleIs the Climate Right for Paris?
Since China and the US the two countries made climate cooperation a priority in bilateral ties two years ago, the positive gesture has stimulated international climate politics. Moves toward common...
View ArticleJoin Hands for Global Sustainable Development
China invites the nations of the world to join in its strategy of opening up featuring mutual benefit and win-win outcomes. By opening doors wider and wider to the outside world, the environment for...
View ArticlePull Together and Cooperate Closely for Win-Win: China’s Enhanced Actions on...
Achieving the environmental goals presented to the UN not only can help China effectively control greenhouse-gas emissions and address global climate change, it will lay a good foundation to improve...
View ArticleCountering Climate Change: Towards an Eco-Civilization for All
Five years after Copenhagen, we see today an unprecedented global effort to secure a successful outcome for the global climate summit to be held in Paris this December. Much progress has been made. But...
View ArticleChina’s Cap and Trade Program: More Than Just Hot Air?
China’s recently announced cap-and-trade system to limit emissions is a positive development, but not new. China’s emissions trading system (ETS) has seen some capping, and very little trading....
View ArticleFinancing Breakthroughs Key to COP21 Success
Historically, international development cooperation without financing arrangements often had no future. Although the Paris Conference opens now, there has been no systemic progress on climate...
View ArticleGetting Below Two Degrees Celsius
As long as booming economic growth is seen as the key to enduring legitimacy and political success, it may be politically impossible to avoid catastrophic global warming. There are no “American” or...
View ArticleDeveloping Nations’ Path to Green Growth After Paris
The landmark climate deal negotiated last week in Paris is important first step. However, increased coordination and cooperation between developed and developing countries to enable these much-needed...
View ArticleAfter Paris, Pressure Builds as China Sets High Emission Goals
The negotiations were tiresome, the jostling was tough and complicated. To save the common homeland of mankind, to guarantee the sustainable development of all countries, the conclusion of the Paris...
View ArticleProperly Investing in Zero Emissions Energy to Pay for Ageing U.S. and...
Roughly $10 trillion per year, or 12% of the global economy, is now in play fighting climate change. Properly invested in zero emission energy, transport and business infrastructure of tomorrow. Key to...
View ArticleAre China’s Dams Causing Droughts in Southeast Asia?
Beijing has highlighted its water hegemony over downstream countries by releasing some dammed water for drought-hit nations in the lower Mekong River basin. Brahma Chellaney argues that this...
View ArticleAfter the Paris Climate Agreement, What’s Next?
China and the U.S. are actively promoting the changes set out in the Paris Climate Agreement signed at the end of April. China’s already shut down enough coal mines to cut CO2 emissions equal to the...
View ArticleClimate Change Outcomes of the 2016 Strategic and Economic Dialogue
Many of the new climate change-related developments within the Strategic and Economic Dialogue emerged from a summit that brought U.S. and Chinese policymakers and private sector leaders together to...
View ArticleThe Human Tragedy of the Stalled Shale Gas Revolution in China
Progress in China’s shale gas exploration has been non-existent, and in the past three years approximately 4.8 million Chinese have died from air pollution from burning coal. Partnerships with large...
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