A Vital Partnership

California and China Collaborating on Clean Energy and Combating Climate Change

on March 4, 2015

As the two largest global emitters of greenhouse gases, China and the United States share the challenge of transforming each of their current fossil fuel–based energy systems into clean twenty-first-century energy systems that remain cornerstones of our vigorous economies while protecting our shared climate, along with our clean air, clean water, and other precious natural resources. This report outlines the types of activities already underway involving agencies in the California state government as well as California-based non-governmental actors and China. As California has taken on some of the functions of a nation-state (in the sense of forming direct relations with foreign governments in sectors of key interest to Californians), it has also helped create something of a state model for subnational international cooperation on climate change and energy issues. We think it is a model worth studying, supporting, and celebrating on both sides of the U.S.-China divide. If we are going to collectively arrive at any kind of meaningful solution to the urgent challenge of climate change, it will most certainly involve active participation by both subnational governmental entities and non-governmental, civil society institutions.

Embed Code: 
View the PDF on Document Cloud
Topics: 
Energy
Environment
Politics
Keywords: 
U.S.-China Relations
Environment
Environmental Protection
Environmental Policy
Environmental Regulation
Cooperation
Organization: 
Asia Society

Sam Geall

on March 3, 2015

Sam Geall is CEO of China Dialogue Trust, an Associate Fellow at Chatham House, and associate faculty at the University of Sussex. His research focuses on climate policy and politics, energy transition, and environmental governance in China, as well as the impact of Chinese investment through the Belt and Road Initiative. He edited China and the Environment: The Green Revolution (Zed Books, 2013).

Stefani Kim

on March 3, 2015

Stefani Kim recently completed her Master’s in Journalism at CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. Prior to graduate school, she covered community news in Westchester County, New York. As an editor for AOL Patch, she was responsible for sourcing, authoring, and editing community-relevant content on a daily basis as well as breaking news relevant to the greater New York community. In addition to having editorial oversight, she was also responsible for maintaining an active presence in the community, as well as on social media. Kim also contributed to educational research projects for the New York University Child Study Center and was a visiting writer at Native People’s Magazine in Phoenix. She is interested in issues affecting recent immigrants and low-income, urban communities.

Can Market Mechanisms Clear China’s Air?

Publishing Environmental Records of Companies Seen As New Way to Fight Pollution

on March 3, 2015

The Chinese government recently responded to rising public discontent over environmental degradation by introducing tougher rules for industrial emissions.

Meanwhile, a non-governmental organization and a state-run newspaper are coordinating a parallel fight against industrial pollution based on market mechanisms.

The Word That Broke the Chinese Internet

Duang

By Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian on March 3, 2015

It might be gibberish, but it’s also a sign of the times. The word duang, pronounced “dwong,” is spreading like wildfire throughout China’s active Internet—even though 1.3 billion Chinese people still haven’t figured out what it means. In fact, its particular combination of sounds can’t even be represented with China’s existing writing system.

Migrant Hair

By Stéphanie Borcard & Nicolas Métraux on March 3, 2015

This photo series of Chinese hairdressers was made in the spring of 2012, in the city center of Chengdu in Sichuan province. There, some 16 percent of the city’s nearly 12 million residents are recent immigrants, like the individuals photographed in this project.

Luigi Tomba

on March 2, 2015

Luigi Tomba is a political scientist with a particular interest in China’s political and social change. He is a Senior Fellow in the Australian Centre on China in the World (CIW) at Australian National University (ANU). Born and educated in Italy, Tomba first visited China in 1988. He joined ANU in 2001 after spending several years in Beijing, where he worked for the Italian diplomatic mission. His early research focused on the ideological debates and policy implications of China’s labor reform between 1975 and 1995. Tomba’s best-known work is on urbanization, the social engineering of a Chinese urban middle class, housing, and land reform. His current research interests are informed by China’ urban question—the ideological implications of China’s project to urbanize the country and its social, political, and territorial consequences. His latest book, The Government Next Door: Neighborhood Politics in Urban China, is a study of China’s urban grassroots governing practices and their implication for regime legitimacy (Cornell University Press, 2014). Since 2005, he has been the Co-Editor of The China Journal, an English-language journal on Chinese affairs. In the Australian Centre on China in the World, Tomba is responsible, with Carolyn Cartier, for the China Urban stream of research. He convenes the Ph.D. program and CIW post-graduate education programs.