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...
Photo Gallery
03.05.20
China’s New Deserts
From Madoi county, a settlement near the headwaters of the Yellow River, our two-car convoy headed out to visit a desert Yang Yong had first viewed through binoculars in 1997. From the roadside, the geologist had seen a small, wind-blown patch of...
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12.04.17China in Pole Position amid 'Desperate' Global Race to Secure Lithium Supplies
CNBC
China is outpacing the U.S. and other countries in a global race to secure supplies of an all-important element for electric cars.
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...
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...
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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...
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03.30.17Climate Change: China Calls U.S. ‘Selfish’ after Trump Seeks to Bring back Coal
Guardian
State-run tabloid says Beijing cannot fill vacuum left by U.S. and urges west to pressure Trump on global warming
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01.18.17China Cancels 103 Coal Plants, Mindful of Smog and Wasted Capacity
New York Times
China is canceling plans to build more than 100 coal-fired power plants, seeking to rein in runaway, wasteful investment in the sector while moving the country away from one of the dirtiest forms of electricity generation
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01.06.17China to Plow $361 Billion into Renewable Fuel by 2020
Reuters
China will plow 2.5 trillion yuan ($361 billion) into renewable power generation by 2020, the country's energy agency said on Thursday, as the world's largest energy market continues to shift away from dirty coal power towards cleaner...
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01.04.17China’s Largest Freshwater Lake Is Shrinking
Huffington Post
China’s largest freshwater lake is under serious threat, and it seems no one can agree on how to save it. Poyang Lake can swell to over 1,700 square miles, an area larger than Rhode Island. But photographs released by China’s state-run Xinhua News...
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...
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11.17.16China Tells Trump Climate Change is Not a Hoax
Washington Post
Trump’s Twitter claim that China created the “concept of global warming” to undermine U.S. manufacturing has elicited a response from the Chinese government
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11.11.16Trump Win Opens Way for China to Take Climate Leadership Role
CNBC
Trump's election is likely to end the U.S. leadership role in the fight against global warming, and may lead to the emergence of an unlikely champion: China.
Environment
03.29.16
Xinjiang Ban on Glacier Tourism Ignores the Bigger Problem
from chinadialogue
The Xinjiang government has banned tourists from glaciers under the 13th Five-Year Plan in order to try and save the far northwestern province’s fast-disappearing ice caps. Home to China’s largest glaciers, the Xinjiang province has seen its...
Green Space
03.14.16
Leonardo DiCaprio Wins Oscar and Green Chinese Hearts
The Oscars are a big deal among Chinese movie fans. So it was an especially big deal last month when Leonardo DiCaprio, whose fame in China is as big as the name of the film which held the box office crown there from 1997-2009—Titanic—became what...
Conversation
03.11.16
Is China Doing Enough for the Environment?
This week, at their biggest annual session in Beijing, Chinese lawmakers are expected to ratify the country’s 13th Five-Year Plan, which contains many new measures to address rampant pollution of the country’s air, soil, and water. Will the plan be...
Green Space
02.04.16
Rescuing China’s Abused Animals
We start with a heartwarming note, which I recently heard about in a New Year’s greeting from Animals Asia, a NGO started by Jill Robinson, originally from the U.K., in Chengdu to rescue Asian bears from their torture-chamber-like cages throughout...
Green Space
01.22.16
Sea Level Rise In Pictures, Cancer Villages Near Beijing
I think a big part of the reason why citizens of the world have not rallied to deal with climate change is the lack of a certain deadline that would warrant our immediate response to the grave consequences of our warming planet. There is no...
Green Space
12.15.15
China is ‘Rational’ Leader on Climate Change, Says Retired NASA Scientist James Hansen
James Hansen, retired NASA scientist and “father of climate change awareness,” believes China, the world’s largest CO2 emitter, will now step up to provide the carbon emissions reduction leadership lacking from the U.S., according to a Guardian...
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...
Green Space
12.04.15
Green Activists Detained for ‘Prostitution,’ Yangtze Dolphins Rebound
Given that the Paris climate negotiations are underway, it is fair to start off with something about rising temperatures. This comes from a neat animation posted on Data Seeds’ WeChat Account that visualizes the warming trend within China’s borders...
Infographics
11.27.15
The Chinese Road to Paris 2015
from Chinese Doodles
Beginning on November 30, Paris will host the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (COP21). Whatever progress is made toward the parties’ agreement on a path forward will depend in large...
Environment
09.30.15
Less Snow in Tibet Means More Heatwaves in Europe
from chinadialogue
Recent summer heatwaves in Europe and northeast Asia have caused massive water shortages and a large number of deaths. But the mechanism behind these extreme weather events is not fully understood.Scientists at China’s Nanjing University of...
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05.25.15Paris Can’t Be Another Copenhagen
New York Times
The U.S. and China must rapidly increase collaboration on climate change both within and beyond the framework of the conference.
Infographics
05.18.15
Submerged
Urban planner and cartographer Jeffrey Linn mapped a possible future for China’s coast, where some 43% of its population currently lives, when the earth's polar ice caps and glaciers have all melted and the sea rises if the planet’s temperature...
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05.12.14China’s Coal Dependency Threatens Efforts to Curb Warming
New York Times
China's coal consumption contributes one-fifth of the world’s total emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from fossil fuels, which, if it continues, will make it change “almost impossible."