Environment
10.03.18The Anti-Corruption Campaign Takes on the War on Pollution
At last year’s 19th Party Congress, Xi Jinping vowed to confront the “principal contradiction” facing Chinese society: “the contradiction between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life.” While the...
ChinaFile Recommends
09.20.17China's Pollution Crackdown Shakes up Iron Ore Traders
Financial Times
Over the summer, price differentials between high and low grade iron ore have intensified amid a government-led crackdown on pollution and outdated steelmaking capacity. That has caught many traders on the hop and left some nursing nasty losses from...
ChinaFile Recommends
09.18.17China's 'Sponge Cities' Aim to Re-Use 70% of Rainwater
CNN
Asian cities are struggling to accommodate rapid urban migration, and development is encroaching on flood-prone areas.
Sinica Podcast
06.28.17Top 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...
Viewpoint
06.08.17Can 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...
Books
05.15.17A World Trimmed with Fur
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, booming demand for natural resources transformed China and its frontiers. Historians of China have described this process in stark terms: pristine borderlands became breadbaskets. Yet Manchu and Mongolian archives reveal a different story. Well before homesteaders arrived, wild objects from the far north became part of elite fashion, and unprecedented consumption had exhausted the region’s most precious resources.In A World Trimmed with Fur, Jonathan Schlesinger uses these diverse archives to reveal how Qing rule witnessed not the destruction of unspoiled environments, but their invention. Qing frontiers were never pristine in the nineteenth century—pearlers had stripped riverbeds of mussels, mushroom pickers had uprooted the steppe, and fur-bearing animals had disappeared from the forest. In response, the court turned to “purification”; it registered and arrested poachers, reformed territorial rule, and redefined the boundary between the pristine and the corrupted. Schlesinger’s resulting analysis provides a framework for rethinking the global invention of nature. —Stanford University Press{chop}
Environment
04.06.17As the U.S. Steps Back, China Must Step up on Climate Leadership
from chinadialogue
Presidents Trump and Xi are scheduled to meet today at Mar-a Lago, Florida, and given the tense state of U.S.-China relations and the political leanings of the Trump administration there is much at stake for cooperation between the countries on the...
ChinaFile Recommends
03.29.17China Poised to Take Lead on Climate After Trump’s Move to Undo Policies
New York Times
President Trump’s signing of an executive order on Tuesday aimed at undoing many of the Obama administration’s climate change policies flips the roles of the two powers.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.08.17‘Irrational’ Coal Plants May Hamper China’s Climate Change Efforts
New York Times
A certain coal plant near the rugged Kazakhstan border and others like it undermine China’s aim of being a global leader on efforts to limit climate change.
ChinaFile Recommends
01.17.17Trump Warming to Reality of Climate Change, Says Senior Chinese Official
Guardian
Beijing’s chief climate negotiator, Xie Zhenhua, talks down fears that joint leadership shown by China and the US will be reversed under new president
ChinaFile Recommends
01.03.17China Gets Tough on Smog Offenders
CNN
China has slapped millions of dollars worth of fines on alleged offenders for violating anti-pollution rules, according to state media.
China in the World Podcast
12.21.16China 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...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.20.16China Chokes on Smog So Bad that Planes Can't Land
USA Today
Major cities across northern China choked Monday under a blanket of smog so thick that industries were ordered shut down and air and ground traffic was disrupted
Viewpoint
11.22.16Making 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
11.16.16The Future of Public Interest Litigation in China
from chinadialogue
China has seen a rapid growth in environmental public interest legal challenges since January 2015, when a revised version of the Environmental Protection Law (EPL) came into effect. Nearly 100 lawsuits have been filed by both NGOs and public...
Environment
11.11.16Trump Presidency May Spell Disaster for Climate
from chinadialogue
The election of Donald Trump may prove a disaster for the climate and especially for climate change negotiations if he sticks to the threats made during his campaign. But it may provide the developing world—especially China—with an opportunity to...
ChinaFile Recommends
09.06.16G20 A Success For China, But Hard Issues Kicked Down the Road
Reuters
Scratch beneath the surface, and the gathering of the world's most powerful leaders was not all plain sailing.
Environment
06.25.15Growing Pains for China’s New Environmental Courts
from chinadialogue
In recent years, China has set up hundreds of new environmental courts as part of institutional reforms that aim to encourage greener growth and curb pollution, but the country will have to speed up training and recruitment to ensure judges have the...
Environment
03.19.15World Coal Investments Increasingly Risky, Especially China’s
from chinadialogue
The investment case for coal-fired power is looking increasingly unconvincing, but more plants will need to be cancelled if the world is to avoid runaway climate change, a report published on Monday said.The report which was co-authored by green...
Environment
03.04.15Clearing Skies
from Sierra Club
After dark is when the pollution arrives on the outskirts of Shanghai. On a bright night, when moonlight refracts through the smog, you can see black clouds of soot pouring out of small workshop smokestacks silhouetted against the sky. In case you...
Reports
03.04.15A Vital Partnership
Asia Society
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...
Environment
03.27.14Climate Change Darkens Life in China
from chinadialogue
Asia faces a worsening water crisis, according to a leaked report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).Water demand from rising populations and living standards, and poor management—in addition to climate change—will increase...
Environment
03.19.14Is China Underfunding its ‘War on Pollution’?
from chinadialogue
China’s environmental spending showed a year-on-year drop of almost ten percent in 2013, according to the budget report delivered at China’s annual parliamentary gathering.Despite premier Li Keqiang’s vow to declare “war on pollution”, the 2013...
Environment
07.25.13Comment: Polluters Shouldn’t Be the Judge of Other Polluters
from chinadialogue
If the law sets a criminal to catch other criminals what do you think those criminals will think? My colleagues have discovered that new legislation threatens to do just that.A new draft revision of the Environmental Protection Law is now online for...
Reports
07.23.13Thirsty Coal 2: Shenhua’s Water Grab
Greenpeace
This investigation report is a follow-up to the 2012 Greenpeace and the China Academy of Sciences joint study: “Thirsty Coal: A Water Crisis Exacerbated By China’s New Mega Coal Bases.” In this report, we focus on the most controversial part of...
ChinaFile Recommends
06.18.13In China, a Push for Cleaner Air
Deal Book
China’s State Council announced an ambitious package on Friday of 10 measures to combat air pollution. Air pollution is a major problem in China and steps to alleviate the problem are vital to the government’s stated goals of...
Environment
03.22.13Public Fury After Chinese Environment Minister Keeps Job
from chinadialogue
In his eight years as China’s environmental protection minister, Zhou Shengxian has failed to keep almost a single promise. I say “almost”: he has kept his word at least when it comes to his own career—as promised, he has not quit.When the new...
Environment
10.11.12China’s New Leaders Must Respect Environmental Rights
from chinadialogue
China has achieved remarkable economic successes over the last three decades. For years, it has led the world in GDP growth. But widespread industrialization and urbanization, along with growth based on increased use of resources, mean the nation...
Reports
04.27.11China’s Green Revolution
chinadialogue
In March, China officially adopted its Twelfth Five-Year Plan, a blueprint for the country’s development from 2011 to 2015. Its green targets will shape China’s action on the environment over the next five years. To mark the occasion, chinadialogue...