Conversation
09.09.22
Could China’s Very Hot Summer Revive Action on Climate Change?
For more than two months, China—along with the rest of the globe—has been struggling with extreme heat and severe droughts. Hundreds of cities are facing temperatures in the 90s and higher, and Beijing last month issued its first nationwide drought...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.19.17China Unveils an Ambitious Plan to Curb Climate Change Emissions
New York Times
China released plans on Tuesday to start a giant market to trade credits for the right to emit planet-warming greenhouse gases. The nationwide market would initially cover only China’s vast, state-dominated power generation sector, which produced...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.13.17China Recovery Pushes Greenhouse Emissions to Global Record
Financial Times
Stronger Chinese economic growth will push global greenhouse gas emissions to a record high in 2017 after remaining flat for three years, dashing tentative hopes of a turning point in the world’s efforts to curb climate change.
ChinaFile Recommends
08.22.17Ford in Talks to Launch Fully Electric Cars in China
Financial Times
Ford is in talks to launch fully electric cars for the Chinese market as the US carmaker plays catch up to international rivals in the race to develop battery vehicles.
ChinaFile Recommends
07.13.17Trump in Paris to Improve Ties despite Divergence on Climate, Trade
Xinhua
U.S. President Donald Trump arrived in Paris on Thursday morning in a diplomatic move to soften divergence with France over climate change and trade liberalization by seeking common ground on security and fight against terrorism.
Sinica Podcast
06.28.17
Top U.S. Diplomat David Rank on Why He Resigned to Protest Trump
from Sinica Podcast
David Rank became the leading diplomat for one of America’s most important embassies during the transition when Iowa governor Terry Branstad formally succeeded former Montana senator Max Baucus as U.S. Ambassador to China on May 24, 2017. He soon...
ChinaFile Recommends
06.26.17Coal on the Rise in China, US, India after Major 2016 Drop
ABC
The world’s biggest coal users — China, the United States and India — have boosted coal mining in 2017, in an abrupt departure from last year’s record global decline for the heavily polluting fuel and a setback to efforts to rein in climate change...
Environment
06.15.17
Bike-Sharing Schemes: Flourishing or Running Riot?
from chinadialogue
Almost one hundred Chinese cities, from Beijing to Lhasa, now have bike-sharing schemes. The bikes, clad in various colors, have GPS trackers and can be unlocked simply by scanning a barcode on the frame with your phone. Some can even be reserved...
Viewpoint
06.08.17
Can China Really Lead the World on Climate?
On Wednesday, the governor of California, Jerry Brown, found himself, not for the first time, with more in common with Chinese President Xi Jinping than with the president of his own nation, Donald Trump. Just days after President Trump announced...
ChinaFile Recommends
06.05.17Turning against Trump: How the Chinese Covered the Climate Pact Exit
New York Times
Mr. Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris agreement gave fresh material to one of the Chinese state media’s favorite propaganda themes: the idea that Western democracy is flawed, chaotic and prone to social strife.
ChinaFile Recommends
06.01.17China Is Getting Serious about Fighting Climate Change at Home. Abroad, Its Investments Tell a Different Story
Los Angeles Times
China, the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter, has in recent years emerged as a global leader in climate action. The country’s use of coal — considered the single biggest contributor to anthropogenic climate change — has dropped every year since...
Sinica Podcast
05.26.17
Chinese Power in the Age of Donald Trump
from Sinica Podcast
When Joseph Nye, Jr., first used the phrase “soft power” in his 1990 book Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power, China did not factor much into his calculus of world order: It had relatively little military and economic power, and...
Environment
05.23.17
India and China Will Offset Trump’s Climate Backslide
from chinadialogue
With the U.S. likely to fall short of its Paris Agreement pledge to reduce carbon emissions, a new analysis released last week claims that overachievement by India and China will ensure progress on climate action is not stymied.The U.S., the world’s...
ChinaFile Recommends
05.22.17China and India Make Big Strides on Climate Change
New York Times
China’s emissions of carbon dioxide appear to have peaked more than 10 years sooner than its government had said they would. And India is now expected to obtain 40 percent of its electricity from non-fossil fuel sources by 2022, eight years ahead of...
ChinaFile Recommends
01.12.17China Wants to Be a Climate Change Watchdog, but Can It Lead by Example?
New York Times
Like some other nations, China, the world’s biggest polluter, has refused to accept international monitoring of its emissions and says it will provide data to outside observers.
China in the World Podcast
12.21.16
China Rises to Challenge of Battling Climate Change
from Carnegie China
With the U.S. leadership role in the fight against climate change now being called into question, China has found itself in the unique position of being a global leader of the cause. In this podcast, nonresident Carnegie-Tsinghua scholar Wang Tao...
Viewpoint
11.22.16
Making China Great Again
China loomed large in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. He accused the country of stealing American jobs and manipulating its currency for trade advantage. He famously tweeted that global warming was a concept created by the Chinese to “make U.S...
Environment
07.21.16
Chengdu’s Pollution Is Complicated by Taxi Apps
from chinadialogue
Research carried out by Peking University’s Statistical Science Centre and Guanghua School of Management found that Chengdu suffers from air pollution 88 percent of the time—even worse than Beijing at 76 percent.
ChinaFile Recommends
06.21.16China’s New Love Affair With Dogs—As Pets, Not Food—Presents Environmental Problems
Deutsche Welle
A culture shift could have an effect on China’s CO2 emissions....
Green Space
04.13.16
Chinese Love Affair with Cars, and Tesla
Chinese love their cars. With the emergence of a large middle class, and in spite of restrictions on daily car use in some cities, many Chinese households are choosing to keep a second and sometimes even a third automobile. The world’s most populous...
ChinaFile Recommends
03.07.16China CO2 Emissions May Have Peaked in 2014: Study
Reuters
China's carbon emissions may have peaked in 2014, putting Beijing under pressure to toughen climate pledges perceived as too lax.
Green Space
12.11.15
Tiananmen Police Don Smog Masks, Wind Makes or Breaks the Blue Sky
Now that Beijing has had its first red alert since institutionalizing its smog alert system in 2013, it was news when the special forces who guard Tiananmen Square were seen, for the first time, wearing face masks to protect them from the smog, too...
Environment
12.10.15
Global Carbon Emissions May Stall in 2015
from chinadialogue
Global carbon dioxide emissions from burning coal, oil, and gas as well as from industrial activities grew by just 0.6 percent in 2014, according to researchers from the Global Carbon Project of the organization Future Earth.The researchers say...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.01.15Putting China’s Coal Consumption Into Context
Brookings Institution
Few issues are more likely to provoke interest about China.
Environment
10.14.15
U.S.-China Announcement is the Most Significant Milestone to Date for Battling Global Climate Change
from Rocky Mountain Institute
The September 25 joint announcement by President Obama and President Xi represents the second time in two years the leaders have met to make significant climate commitments. Last year’s meeting focused on setting aggressive goals that reflect each...
ChinaFile Recommends
09.25.15Enacting Cap-and-Trade Will Present Challenges Under China’s System
New York Times
White House officials have lauded President Xi Jinping's anticipated promise of a national market for China in greenhouse gas quotas.
Environment
07.15.15
Scientists Call for More Emission Cuts
from chinadialogue
It is still possible to limit average global temperature rise to two degrees Celsius (2˚C) and avoid catastrophic climate change, but the remaining global carbon budget—the amount of carbon that can be safely released into the atmosphere if this...
Conversation
07.08.15
Are China’s Limits on Greenhouse Gas Emissions Meaningful?
Last week, Premier Li Keqiang said China would cut its “carbon intensity”—the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per unit of GDP—to 60-65 percent of 2005 levels by 2030. Visiting Paris, the site in September of the United Nations Climate Change...
Environment
06.15.15
China’s Greehouse Gas Emissions Likely to Peak by 2025
from chinadialogue
China’s output of greenhouse gases could peak in 2025, five years earlier than it has promised, meaning that the world’s largest emitter may be able to quicken the pace of cuts in coming decades, according to a new paper published June 8 by the...
Reports
06.08.15
China’s “New Normal”: Structural Change, Better Growth, and Peak Emissions
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
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,...
Reports
02.25.15
Double Impact
Paulson Institute
This paper makes the case for establishing a national CO2 price in China as soon as possible. End-of-pipe pollution control technologies—a core component of China’s Air Pollution Action Plan (APAP)—can address local air pollution but not CO2...
Reports
02.11.15
It’s Time to Peak
World Wildlife
Without additional efforts, global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will continue to increase by 3.7 – 4.8 °C, a level well beyond the 2 °C temperature rise limit widely agreed among scientists and governments across the world as a limit above which...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.12.13Pollution Economics
New York Times
With more than a million people dying prematurely each year from breathing its dirty air, the Communist country is experimenting with a capitalist approach: create incentives so that the market will force reductions in emissions.
ChinaFile Recommends
05.02.13Airbus Reaches Deal To Sell Jets To China
Wall Street Journal
Airbus said it clinched an order from China for 60 Airbus jets, including 18 planes that had fallen hostage to China’s order freeze in retaliation to the E.U.’s 2012 decision to include the airline sector in a carbon-dioxide-emissions trading scheme...