China’s “New Normal”: Structural Change, Better Growth, and Peak Emissions

By Fergus Green and Nicholas Stern on June 8, 2015

China has grown rapidly—often at double-digit rates—for more than three decades by following a strategy of high investment, strong export orientation, and energy-intensive manufacturing. While this growth lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, it also heightened problems of inequality—personal, regional, and urban-rural—and intensified pollution, congestion, and greenhouse gas emissions. Recognizing these difficulties, as well as the maturation of China’s economy in terms of skills, productivity, and rising wages, and slower growth in some of China’s traditional export markets, the economic strategy has changed. China has now entered a new phase of economic development—a “new normal”—focused on better quality growth. From structural changes in the economy to explicit policies on efficiency, air pollution, and clean energy, China’s new development model is continuing to promote economic growth while driving down its greenhouse gas emissions.

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Topics: 
Economy
Energy
Environment
Keywords: 
Carbon
CO2 Emissions
Emissions
Environmental Protection
Air Pollution
Pollution
Economic Development
Economic Growth
Organization: 
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research

Peter LaFontaine

on June 7, 2015

Peter LaFontaine is a Campaigns Officer with the International Fund for Animal Welfare’s (IFAW) Washington, D.C. office.

LaFontaine helps to lead IFAW’s U.S. federal and state efforts to safeguard elephants and other species threatened by illegal wildlife trafficking, and advocates for stronger measures to address climate change. Prior to joining IFAW, LaFontaine worked for the National Wildlife Federation on climate change, fossil fuel, and natural resource adaptation issues, and he was a staff naturalist for the Cottonwood Gulch Foundation in New Mexico.

LaFontaine holds a B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis and is a recent graduate of the Emerging Wildlife Conservation Leaders program.

Should the U.S. Change its China Policy and How?

A ChinaFile Conversation

By Hugh White , Mary Kay Magistad & more on June 6, 2015

The past several months have seen a growing chorus of calls for the U.S. to take stock of its policy toward China. Some prominent voices have called for greater efforts by the U.S. and China to forge “a substantive sense of common purpose,” while others reject the notion that the U.S. and China can ever coexist without conflict and believe America needs to contain China.

Vanessa Hope

on June 6, 2015

Vanessa started her film career in China while teaching a graduate course on law and society at People's University (on a grant from the Ford Foundation) and completing her PhD at Columbia University. Fluent in Chinese, she has produced multiple films in China, including Wang Quanan’s The Story Of Ermei (Berlin Film Festival), Chantal Akerman’s Tombee De Nuit Sur Shanghai, and her own short films—China In Three Words, featuring Chinese author, Yu Hua (Palm Springs, Doc NYC 2013), and China Connection: Jerry, with Jerome Alan Cohen (Palm Springs, Doc NYC 2014). She directed and produced a web series for NYU’s U.S.-Asia Law Institute called Law, Life & Asia. Her U.S. producing credits include the feature documentary William Kunstler: Disturbing The Universe, by Sarah and Emily Kunstler (Sundance, 2009). Vanessa’s feature documentary directorial debut, All Eyes And Ears, premiered at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival.

Prior to her film career, Vanessa worked on foreign policy issues at the Council on Foreign Relations with Senior Fellow and Director of Asia Studies Elizabeth Economy. She also worked at the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations when David Lampton was president. She graduated with honors from the University of Chicago, and her PhD studies at Columbia have included the Princeton University program in Beijing, and a year at Stanford University’s program in Taipei. Vanessa grew up in New York City, but lives in Los Angeles. You can follow her on Twitter @VHopeful and @alleyesearsdoc.

Hong Kong’s Long-Standing Unity on Tiananmen Is Unraveling

on June 5, 2015

June 4, a day that changed mainland China forever, has become a cross that the city of Hong Kong bears. Each year, thousands of the city’s residents gather on an often steamy night and share anxious memories of 1989, when tanks rolled by bloodied students and bodies sprawled on Beijing streets. For many Hong Kongers, the day is an uncomfortable yet necessary reminder that while they may have come of age in a colony ruled by the British, they now live under a controlling government willing to answer protest with bullets.