Environment China

[Special note: due to microphone issues, the audio quality on this episode was somewhat poor, and may require listening in a quiet place. We think you will find the content compelling nonetheless.] Today we will be talking about some recent issues related to climate change in China, especially the launch of trading on China’s national carbon trading system, as well as coverage of recent flooding in Henan province. Our guest today is Liu Hongqiao, China Specialist with Carbon Brief. Hongqiao holds a masters in international relations (specialising in international energy) from Sciences Po in France. She previously worked as an independent consultant covering water, climate change and wildlife. Prior to that, Hongqiao was a Beijing-based journalist and analyst writing for publications such as Caixin and China Dialogue. Carbon Brief is a UK-based website covering the latest developments in climate science, climate policy and energy policy, specialised in data-driven articles and graphics to help improve the understanding of climate change, both in terms of the science and the policy response.  Topics we cover in detail today:  Assessment of China's newly-launched carbon emissions trading system (ETS) How the ETS will evolve Whether the ETS will reduce emissions directly, or play a minor or supporting role Misconceptions about China's Five-Year Plan and 2030-2060 carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals Global media and scientific coverage of extreme weather  How Chinese media have approached the issue of climate attribution Important references from Carbon Brief: You Xiaoying, "China issues new ‘single-game’ instructions to guide its climate action," Carbon Brief,  4 August 2021, at https://www.carbonbrief.org/china-issues-new-single-game-instructions-to-guide-its-climate-action. Liu Hongqiao, "In-depth Q&A: Will China’s emissions trading scheme help tackle climate change?," Carbon Brief, 24 June 2021, at https://www.carbonbrief.org/in-depth-qa-will-chinas-emissions-trading-scheme-help-tackle-climate-change. Geert Jan van Oldenborgh et al., "­­­Lessons learned from five years of extreme weather ‘rapid attribution’," Carbon Brief, 12 May 2021, at https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-lessons-learned-from-five-years-of-extreme-weather-rapid-attribution. Liu Hongqiao et al., "Q&A: What does China’s 14th ‘five year plan’ mean for climate change?," Carbon Brief, 12 March 2021, at https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-what-does-chinas-14th-five-year-plan-mean-for-climate-change. "China Briefing, 29 July 2021: Lessons from deadly flooding; Definition of ‘carbon neutrality’; UK-China nuclear tensions," Carbon Brief, 29 July 2021, at https://www.carbonbrief.org/china-briefing-29-july-2021-lessons-from-deadly-flooding-definition-of-carbon-neutrality-uk-china-nuclear-tensions. Other reports mentioned by Hongqiao: Valerie J. Karplus, "China’s CO2 Emissions Trading System: History, Status, and Outlook," Harvard Belfer Center, June 2021, at https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/chinas-co2-emissions-trading-system-history-status-and-outlook.  International Energy Agency analysis of China ETS: https://www.iea.org/reports/the-role-of-chinas-ets-in-power-sector-decarbonisation  Transition Zero analysis of China ETS: https://www.transitionzero.org/insights/putting-chinas-carbon-market-in-perspective Twitter thread from Liu Hongqiao on weather attribution: https://twitter.com/LHongqiao/status/1420784539547340811   

Today we will be talking about debt swaps and China’s role in the global financial landscape, with Rebecca Ray and Blake Alexander Simmons of BU. Although China has only recently become a major creditor, it has already built a strong record of bilateral debt relief and has even begun to advocate for linking actions to promote biodiversity and fighting climate change with international finance and debt relief.   Guests: Rebecca Ray is a Senior Academic Researcher at the Global Development Policy Center, at Boston University. She holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and an MA in International Development from the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University. Since 2013, she has focused on the nexus of international development finance, particularly China’s role in reshaping the global financial landscape, and sustainable development, particularly in Latin America. She produces the annual China-Latin America Economic Bulletin series and the China’s Overseas Development Finance database. She was lead editor for the books China and Sustainable Development in Latin America: the Social and Environmental Dimension and Development Banks and Sustainability in the Andean Amazon. Blake Alexander Simmons is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Global Development Policy Center. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Queensland (Australia) and his M.S. from the University of Antwerp (Belgium). His research focuses on how environmental, political, and psychosocial factors influence conservation decisions in social-ecological systems, and how we can change behaviors to achieve positive outcomes for people and nature. At the GDPC, Blake is investigating the impacts of China’s Belt and Road Initiative on biodiversity and indigenous peoples.   References: Blake Alexander Simmons, Rebecca Ray, Yang H, Kevin P. Gallagher, "China can help solve the debt and environmental crises," Science (80), 21 January 2021, at https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abf4049, or https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6528/468.   Time stamps for our discussion: 2:33 – How could China use debt for nature swaps and what’s the model? 2:50 – China is world’s largest low-income bilateral creditor. Countries are struggling to repay given Covid. 4:00 – Relieving a portion of debt in exchange for climate protection. Science paper lists which are best countries for this solution. 4:45 – Three economic trends: capital flight, currency volatility, and drop in trade. All challenge debt repayment and capital investment. If countries can’t make repayments anyway, shared goals are a way to renegotiate commitments without default. 6:00 – China has been at the forefront of debt relief for poorest countries. 6:30 – How does this affect China’s position as a creditor? 7:00 – China’s debt portfolio highly concentrated in a few countries. China has an interest in restructuring with these countries because of the long-term diplomatic and economic relationships—Venezuela as an example. 8:15 – What’s the difference of a debt-for-nature and debt-for-climate swap? 10:00 – History and examples of debt-for-nature swaps, going back to 1980s and 1990s. WWF pioneered, Ecuador was an early case. Third parties like WWF or the Nature Conservancy would pay for a portion of outstanding debts in exchange for conservation policies. 11:30 – Example of bilateral debt-for-nature swaps. Early cases of debt-for-climate. 12:50 – Example of the Seychelles and the marine protected areas. 14:00 – Nature-performance-linked-bonds. Examples of Ecuador and Argentina proposals. 17:30 – How does enforcement work? Are there standards? 19:00 – Inclusion of local communities in enforcement versus top-down goal-setting and monitoring. 23:00 – Announcements that could come from CBD COP. Discussions with CCICED. 25:30 – Expectations about green finance for nature. 28:00 – Why China still financing coal projects and whether that contradicts the idea of debt-for-climate swaps.  

Today, we're talking about climate litigation against private companies and the implications for China. We have recently seen the burgeoning of climate-related law-suits, including earlier ones such as Kivalina v. ExxonMobil in 2009, and more recent cases in Norway against oil drilling in the Arctic, and the case of New York City v. Chevron. There’s also an on-going case against BP in the UK right now filed by ClientEarth UK. In today's podcast, we’ll discuss the case in the Netherlands brought by Friends of the Earth against Royal Dutch Shell. On May 26, the court ordered Shell to reduce its CO2 emissions by 45% by 2030 (with 2019 as a base level). The court stated that Shell’s climate policies were “not concrete and are full of conditions...that's not enough.” This is a second monumental verdict issued by the district court in the Hague, after the Urgenda Case, brought by the Urgenda Foundation and Dutch citizens against the government of the Netherlands, which was decided in 2018. Today we have two guests from ClientEarth China to talk about this judgement and issues beyond: Dimitri de Boer and Boya Jiang. Dimitri de Boer is the head of ClientEarth China, one of China’s most prominent environmental cooperation experts. Before joining ClientEarth, He previously led the EU – China Environmental Governance Programme from 2010 to 2015. Dimitri worked as senior adviser on environment and climate change for the United Nations Industrial Development Organization in China for 12 years. He also worked as a consultant for the World Bank, European Union, and the Chinese government. Dimitri volunteers as vice-chairman of the Board of China Carbon Forum, an independent platform which aims to foster trust and cooperation among China’s stakeholders for climate action. Boya Jiang is the Nature and Climate Lawyer at ClientEarth, a charity focusing on advancing environmental governance and rule of law. Boya is a legal expert and she holds a Magis Juris degree in law from the University of Oxford. At present, Boya is focusing on how to promote the environmental rule of law to help resolve issues related to biodiversity and climate change. For further reading: Jason Bordoff, "Why Shaking Up Big Oil Could Be a Pyrrhic Victory," Foreign Policy, 3 June 2021, at https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/06/03/big-oil-shell-exxon-chevron-emissions-climate-change-production-supply-demand-cuts-risks/ Background from Reuters on the Shell case: https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/dutch-court-orders-shell-set-tougher-climate-targets-2021-05-26/ Background on the BP case: https://climate-laws.org/litigation_cases?b_party_type%5B%5D=corporation&b_party_type%5B%5D=individual_corporation&side_b%5B%5D=BP Background on how the Shell case relates to recent shareholder action at ExxonMobil and Chevron: https://www.nbcnews.com/business/energy/climate-activists-score-wins-against-exxon-shell-chevron-n1268705 Background on the Norwegian Arctic case: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-norway-oil-environment-idUSKBN1ZM1A6 IEA reports on the oil and gas industry and need for transition: https://www.iea.org/reports/the-oil-and-gas-industry-in-energy-transitions

Today we are having a wide-ranging discussion with Faye Lu of the China Youth Climate Change Action Network, where we explore her work on a forthcoming film about climate that traces the route of early human migration out of Africa, and about her work with Celu Studios on the issue of bird collisions. We are also joined by BEN member and organizer Melanie Coerver. See videos of the bird-safe UV glass, which is perfectly transparent in visible light, but can be seen by birds: https://twitter.com/derznovich/status/1401369742036770816 https://twitter.com/derznovich/status/1401369964074790912   Faye LU is the Deputy Secretary-General of China Youth Climate Change Action Network (CYCAN), responsible for institutional strategic planning. She launched Work for Good, a sustainable employment platform for young people. She initiated nationwide research, communication, and action on bird collisions in China, in order to help protect biodiversity in cities. She is the co-founder of CELU Studio, an international art and design studio focused on addressing environmental issues through art and technology. In 2019, she travelled by retracing the early human migration route, starting in East Africa and moving through North Africa, Middle East, Europe, and South Asia. Along the route, she made a documentary and art pieces recording the impact of climate change, as well as possible solutions. Her works have been exhibited in the London Art Pavilion and Beijing UCCA art center. Prior to that, Faye worked as vice president of New Hope Group Southeast Asia headquarters. She has master's degrees in financial management, business, and development economics. Here are some key time-stamps for the program: 3:10 - About the trip out of Africa 4:30 - Stories of how climate change intersects with the lives of regular people in Kenya near Lake Victoria 6:40 - Positive examples of people in Kenya taking action on solving problems brought on by climate change 8:14 - How to communicate positively on climate for younger Chinese audiences 13:10 - How to bear witness to climate change 16:00 - Intro to the problem of bird collisions 20:30 - How to solve the problem of bird collisions 21:00 - Bird-safe glass 22:15 - A 500-person network to record bird collisions in China 23:00 - How art can help communicate the issue of bird collision while also protecting birds, through transparent but bird-safe window glass with UV designs 24:40 - UV pens and stickers 25:00 - Government actions 26:12 - What's next for the film

Today, we are talking about the institutions and international politics of China’s climate policy with Professor Miranda Schreurs, Chair of Environmental and Climate Policy at the Bavarian School of Public Policy, and vice dean of Technical University of Munich’s school of governance, where she has served since 2016. Prior to this she was Director of the Environmental Policy Research Center and Professor of Comparative Politics at the Freie Universität Berlin. She has served as member of the German Advisory Council on the Environment and as vice chair of the European Environment and Sustainable Development Advisory Councils since 2008. She was also a tenured associate Professor in the Department of Government and Politics, University of Maryland. Schreurs’ work focuses on comparative environmental politics and policy in Europe, the US, and East Asia. She was born and raised in the United States and has also lived for extended periods in Japan and Germany and briefly in the Netherlands. She has a PhD from the University of Michigan and an MA and BA from the University of Washington. Here are the key questions we discuss: 01:41 - Has Europe been positively surprised by China carbon developments in the last year? 03:00 - Would you say that the mutual cooperation and agreement on climate outweighs disputes on trade policy in the energy field? 07:25 - Does Europe now view China as a climate leader? 10:05 - How does Europe expect China to react to the carbon border adjustment tax? 13:00 - Regarding Prof Schreurs' past work on Multi-level Perspectives on climate governance, does she see climate policy in China becoming more centralized? 15:30 - The role of provincial and local pilots in climate-related policy 17:10 - The extent to which provinces may drag their feet on climate policy 19:30 - Incentives for local officials on environmental performance 20:30 - How did the concept of carbon neutrality come to be recognized as viable for China? 25:00 - The role of the carbon market in China compared to other policies Important links: https://www.professoren.tum.de/en/schreurs-miranda Miranda Schreurs, "Multi-level Climate Governance in China," 2017: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316246858_Multi-level_Climate_Governance_in_China 

Today, we’re talking about a type of clean energy that doesn’t get much attention these days: concentrating solar power. For the past decade, solar photovoltaic or PV panels have dominated the world solar market, and China has installed over 200 GW of PV, currently adding a whopping 40 GW of PV every year. Distinct from PV, concentrating solar power, or CSP, takes a bunch of different forms: long troughs of mirrors that heat a central element such as a pipe filled with water or molten salt, power towers surrounded by fields of mirrors called heliostats, and a couple others. Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) technologies use mirrors to track the sun and reflect and concentrate its light onto a ‘receiver’, where it is converted into heat. This heat can be used to produce electrical power with a conventional steam turbine and generator, or as industrial process heat. That’s a big advantage over PV, which just produces electricity directly, but doesn’t create high heat. CSP also has great potential for on-site energy storage, which is becoming more important as solar grows. We’re talking today with two long-time friends of BEN: Alina Gilmanova, of China’s Key Laboratory of Solar Thermal Energy and Photovoltaic Systems, Institute for Electrical Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences; and Jorrit Gosens, Research Fellow on Energy Transitions at the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University. (Also noted for the China Energy Portal, https://chinenergyportal.org.) Alina and Jorrit recently published a paper (with Johan Lilliestam) on CSP in China entitled: “Windows of opportunity for catching up in formative clean-tech sectors and the rise of China in concentrated solar power,” in Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions. The link to the journal article is: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1ckYn7sbuJDG-k For those without subscription, a freely available pre-print version of the paper can be found here: https://ccep.crawford.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/publication/ccep_crawford_anu_edu_au/2021-04/wp_2104.pdf Guide to the discussion: 2:13 - Alina talks about the history of CSP in various countries and China 5:23 - Alina describes the relative degree of CSP's technology maturity 7:27 - Alina discusses the dominant design for CSP today and the move in China towards tower technology 9:45 - Jorrit discusses the factors that make different technologies more or less susceptible to technology catch-up, especially now that it's recognized that developing countries like China don't need to wait until a technology reaches maturity  12:40 - Jorrit discusses how CSP compares on those factors that enable catch-up 14:27 - Jorrit discusses how they decided to write this study and why CSP is special in terms of catch-up 16:30 - Jorrit describes the concept of a window-of-opportunity for catch-up, and how CSP fits into this idea 18:11 - Anders, Jorrit, and Alina discuss whether the connection to coal boiler technology motivated Chinese companies to enter the CSP field 22:11 - Anders asks if the bankruptcy of all the competing players inherently led to "catch-up" 24:30 - Alina discusses the role of energy storage in China CSP; references paper on economics of storage using CSP vs PV+battery: "Making the Sun Shine at Night," 2021, at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15567249.2020.1843565.  26:20 - Alina discusses the present economics of CSP in China and whether there is a path forward 27:09 - Alina discusses China's go-abroad strategy for CSP 29:53 - Jorrit explains his view of whether CSP offers lessons for other developing countries considering industrial policy to foster new industries in clean energy Another useful resource: Open CSP data base with all  CSP projects worldwide (https://csp.guru/), also at: Johan Lilliestam, Richard Thonig, Chuncheng Zang, & Alina Gilmanova (2021). CSP.guru (Version 2021-01-01) [Data set]. Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4613099  

A lot has happened in China climate and energy policy just in the weeks since the release of the outline of the national 14th Five-Year Plan. Provinces, state-owned energy giants, cities, and companies are announcing carbon neutral plans, ministries are issuing new policies, and there are new discussions around accelerating the carbon market to include more sectors and add auctions. Yet without the bright, blinking lights of the words Five-Year Plan, these important developments are often missing from English-language reporting. We will go through them one by one, and also address larger questions, like whether China now sees itself as a leader on climate policy, and the trend towards administrative management versus markets in energy and carbon. Today, we’re talking again with Yan Qin, a power and carbon analyst at Refinitiv in Norway. She has extensive experiences in energy market analysis and quantitative modelling. Her work focuses on the short-term outlook for power and carbon trading, supply-demand forecasting, and energy policy insights, mainly for clients at utilities and energy companies. Yan holds a Masters in Economics from the University of Oslo.   For further reading: Carbon Brief: https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-what-does-chinas-14th-five-year-plan-mean-for-climate-change Oxford Institute for Energy Studies: https://www.oxfordenergy.org/publications/key-issues-for-chinas-14th-five-year-plan/ China Dialogue: https://chinadialogue.net/en/energy/the-14th-five-year-plan-sends-mixed-message-about-chinas-near-term-climate-trajectory/ Vox: https://www.vox.com/22313871/china-energy-climate-change-five-year-plan-wind-solar-coal-oil-gas  

Today's podcast looks in detail at the market's expectations for carbon pricing in China, based on the results of the China Carbon Pricing Survey 2020, at http://www.chinacarbon.info/.  The survey has been around for long enough to provide a view of how market expectations have changed over time and what types of companies are seeing the most changes. We get into a lot of discussion that goes beyond the actual findings in the report, like how asset values are likely to change, what it means that so few respondents view the ETS as having modified investment practices, and how the results would compare if the same survey was done in Europe. Our guests:  Huw Slater is the Lead Climate Specialist at ICF’s Beijing office and supports the EU-China ETS Platform. He is the lead author of the China Carbon Pricing Survey report. Dimitri DeBoer leads the china office of Client Earth, a European NGO focused on environmental law, which works with the Ministry of Ecology and Environment. He is also special advisor to the CCICED, the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development. Wang Shu is lead management consultant at ICF. He is a former director in the Climate Change Department in the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission and has over ten years of experience working on climate change and clean energy, especially related to regional and national carbon markets. Special note: Due to technical difficulties, we had to re-record parts of the podcast. As a result some (but not all!) portions refer to "this year" as 2020 and "next year" as 2021. The miracle of time travel! If something seems confusing, just mentally modify to the year that seems correct, given that we knew then and still know that trading will begin in 2021, not "next year" as is stated in several spots!

Two weeks into the Biden administration, and we’ve arrived at the fourth and final episode of our short series talking about US-China cooperation on energy and climate. Today, we host special guest Lili Pike, past organizer and host of the BEN podcast and now journalist at Vox.com, where she has written about U.S. China cooperation. She was previously at China Dialogue in Beijing. Lili and Anders review the recent comments from John Kerry and Zhao Lijian about US-China climate negotiations, discuss technologies where the two countries lead, and talk about whether the Biden administration's turn towards multilateralism might help or hinder climate discussions with China. We also touch on green finance, the Green Climate Fund, and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

We’ve arrived at Episode 3 of our series talking about the Biden administration and what it means for US-China cooperation on energy and climate, with a special emphasis today on subnational cooperation, with Dr Fan Dai. We hone in on how the countries could work together on developing pathways for low-carbon energy transitions and potentially coordinate on areas where the focus is now on scale up, and no longer on the now discarded concept of "burden sharing."  Dr Fan Dai is the Director of the California-China Climate Institute at University of California, Berkeley. has played a significant role leading California’s collaboration with China on climate, energy and environment. She was appointed by Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr as Special Advisor on China. Under Brown, Dr. Dai chaired the state’s China Interagency Working Group, and acted as the state’s liaison on its critical economic and environmental initiatives on China. Previously, Dr. Dai served as senior advisor at California Environmental Protection Agency. Dai is a graduate of Berkeley Law, University of California, and holds a doctoral degree on Environmental Policy and Economics from State University of New York.