Environment China

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.

Welcome to Part 2 of our podcast series about the Biden administration and what it means for US-China cooperation on energy and climate. On this episode, we have four energy and climate experts from the U.S. and China. Li Xiang of Peking University, Alvin Lin of the Natural resources defense council, Li Shuo of Greenpeace East Asia, and Ma Li of the US-China Energy Cooperation Program. We did the interviews on the same day, but separately and using different software, so the sound is slightly different at the transitions. Bios: Li Xiang is an adjunct research professor at Peking University Energy Institute, and previously served at the Rocky Mountain Institute and prior to that at the International Energy Agency and China Electric Power Planning and Engineering Institute. He has a PhD and bachelor's of engineering from Tsinghua. Alvin Lin is China climate and energy policy director in the Natural Resource Defense Council's Beijing office. His areas of expertise include the environmental impacts of coal and shale gas development, energy efficiency technologies, nuclear power safety regulations, and air pollution law and policy. Prior to joining NRDC, Lin worked as a litigator and a judicial clerk in New York City. He holds a bachelor's degree from Yale University, a master's from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and a JD from New York University. Li Shuo is the Senior Climate & Energy Policy Officer for Greenpeace East Asia. He oversees Greenpeace's work on air pollution, water, and renewable energy. Internationally, he coordinates the organization's engagement with the United Nations climate negotiation (UNFCCC). Li Shuo studied International Law and US-China relations at Nanjing University and the Hopkins Nanjing Center. Ma Li is the executive director of US-China Energy Cooperation Program (ECP), a private sector-led non-profit public-private-partnership platform created in 2009 as a result of an official dialogue between then US president Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao in 2009. Li holds a master degree in Public Service Administration and a BA degree of International Business from the DePaul University. Stay tuned next week for Part 3!

Today we are beginning a new series of podcasts on the hot topic of US-China energy and climate cooperation, starting with Professor Joanna Lewis of Georgetown University. Dr Joanna Lewis is Provost's Distinguished Associate Professor of Energy and Environment and Director of the Science, Technology and International Affairs Program (STIA) at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. She is also a faculty affiliate in the China Energy Group at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Lewis leads Georgetown's US-China Climate Research Dialogue and US-China Energy and Climate Working Group. Lewis holds a Master's and Ph.D. in Energy and Resources from the University of California, Berkeley and a Bachelor's degree in Environmental Science and Policy from Duke University. In this episode, we touch on: Lessons from past U.S.-China climate and energy cooperation, a topic Prof Lewis addressed in a recent paper here: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/766400; Which areas of climate cooperation the Biden administration is likely to focus on; Whether Trump tariffs on solar and other clean energy technologies will be removed; Whether the U.S. can still cooperate with China on technology innovation; And whether the two countries still believe they can learn from each other on climate policy.

Methane is responsible for an astonishing one-quarter of today's global warming, and that makes it an urgent issue, right alongside CO2. But most analysts focus mainly on CO2 and the energy mix, not other greenhouse gases, and those who do look at methane mainly focus on the U.S. or other major gas producing countries. So today, we're going to talk about a couple of recent EDF reports and scientific articles about methane related policies in China. Our guest today is Zhang Jianyu. Dr Zhang is Chief Representative of the China Office of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), and he is also Vice President and member of the Executive Team at EDF. He helped found the China program of EDF and helped it become the first international NGO registered with the Ministry of Ecology and Environment in 2017. Dr Zhang has contributed to the establishment of China's Carbon Trading System, and has authored numerous peer-reviewed articles, as well as columns, and book chapters. Methane, like CO2, is a greenhouse gas. Pure methane has the chemical formula CH4. Most comes from oil and gas wells or from coal mines. It's more efficient and less CO2 intensive than coal or oil, but direct methane emissions have a far larger global warming effect per molecule than CO2, with a global warming effect over 80 times higher per molecule (when measured over a 20-year period). About 25% of today's global warming is caused by methane emissions. The IEA estimates that the world's oil and gas industry can feasibly cut methane emissions by 75%, and of that, 2/3 would be at no cost. China has committed to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 and to peak carbon emissions before 2030. Currently (as of this recording on Dec. 18, 2020), it is unclear if that includes all greenhouse gases or just CO2. For further reading: Ramon Alvarez et al., "Assessment of methane emissions from the U.S. oil and gas supply chain," Science, July 2018: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6398/186.full?ijkey=42lcrJ/vdyyZA&keytype=ref&siteid=sci. Scot M. Miller at al., "China's coal mine methane regulations have not curbed growing emissions," Nature Communications, February 2019, at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-07891-7. "Measuring Methane," EDF, 2020: https://www.edf.org/sites/default/files/EDF-Methane-Science-Brochure.pdf. "Methane: A Global Challenge, A Global Opportunity," EDF, 2020: https://www.edf.org/sites/default/files/methane-a_global_challenge_a_global_opportunity.pdf. "China Signals Methane is a New Climate Focus for Curtailing Energy Emissions," EDF, June 2019, https://www.edf.org/media/china-signals-methane-new-climate-focus-curtailing-energy-emissions. "Challenge, opportunity as China begins to tackle fossil fuel methane emissions," EDF, March 2019, at http://blogs.edf.org/energyexchange/2019/03/08/challenge-opportunity-as-china-begins-to-tackle-fossil-fuel-methane-emissions/.

Today, we're going to be discussing a new report, Green Development Guidance for BRI Projects Baseline Study, published by the BRI International Green Development Coalition (BRIGC) and backed by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment. The BRIGC is a joint Chinese and international coalition, and in December last year the coalition began work on the current study, which formulates a classification framework and positive and negative lists for BRI investments. With the team leaders Mr. Erik Solheim, Special Advisor World Resources Institute (WRI) and Ms. Zhou Guomei, Executive Director-General, Foreign Environmental Cooperation Center, Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE), the report was written by a team of Chinese and international scholars and experts. Our first guest is Dr. Christoph Nedopil Wang, the Founding Director of the Green Belt and Road Initiative Center and a Senior Research Fellow at the International Institute of Green Finance (IIGF) of the Central University of Finance and Economics (CUFE) in Beijing, China. Christoph is a member of the Belt and Road Initiative Green Coalition (BRIGC) of the Chinese Ministry of Ecology and Environment. Christoph holds a master of engineering from the Technical University Berlin, a master of public administration from Harvard Kennedy School, as well as a PhD in Economics. Our second guest is Wang Ye, Research Analyst in WRI Finance Center. She works to coordinate the work and engage in researches related to promoting sustainability in the financial system in China. Ye holds an Erasmus Mundus Master in Sustainable Territorial Development from the consortium of University of Padova, K.U. Leuven, University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (France) and Dom Bosco Catholic University (Brazil), specializing in Applied Economics. She also holds dual Bachelor degrees in Journalism and International Finance from Beijing Foreign Studies University in China. For further reading: "Green Development Guidance for BRI Projects Baseline Study Report," BRI International Green Development Coalition, December 2020, at http://en.brigc.net/Reports/Report_Download/202012/P020201201717466274510.pdf. Ma Tianjie, "Advisors propose new system to regulate China's overseas investments," China Dialogue, December 4, 2020, at https://chinadialogue.net/en/climate/advisors-propose-new-system-to-regulate-chinas-overseas-investments/. Lihuan Zhou, Sean Gilbert, Ye Wang, Miquel Muñoz Cabré and Kevin P. Gallagher, "Moving the Green Belt and Road Initiative: From Words to Actions," World Resources Institute, November 2018, at https://www.wri.org/publication/moving-green-belt-and-road-initiative-from-words-to-actions

In this episode, we're going to take a deep dive on modeling China's long-term, carbon-neutral energy future with Yu Sha and Ryna Cui of the University of Maryland Center for Global Sustainability. Dr. Yu and Dr. Cui co-lead the China Program at CGS. Dr. Ryna Cui is an expert in global coal transition and climate and energy policies in China. Her research focuses on climate change mitigation, and sustainable energy transition, and she is experienced in global and national integrated assessment modeling of China, India and the United States. She is currently serving as a contributing author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report on the topic of global coal transition. Dr. Sha Yu is an expert in clean energy, finance, and economic modeling. She leads the development of GCAM-China and engagement on China's long-term strategies and transition pathways. She has over 10 years of experience working on policy development and implementation in China at the national, provincial, and local levels. Dr. Yu is also a leading expert on China integrated assessment modeling and analysis. She also leads projects in other developing countries, such as India and Vietnam. This is a pretty data-intensive episode. Here are some time stamps and quick notes: 2:30 About the GCAM model, it's main advantages and uses. 3:50 Using the GCAM model to identify and prioritize which coal plants should be closed early. 6:10 Which regions would see the most early retirements under the model. 6:46 The history and flaws in China's Risk Alert system (traffic light system) for provinces approving new coal plants. 10:25 The Five Strategies, which are: (1) Promoting sustainable demand while restructuring the economy. (2) Decarbonizing electricity generation and shifting electricity system to a more diverse system, based mainly on renewables but supplemented by nuclear and CCS (carbon capture and storage). (3) Electrification of major energy consuming sectors such as transport and buildings. (4) For hard-to-electrify sectors or technologies, switch to low-carbon biofuels or other low-carbon fuels. (5) Negative emissions including carbon capture and land use changes to cover emissions from hard-to-decarbonize fields. 12:25 The key graph (page 2 of this PDF: https://cgs.umd.edu/sites/default/files/2020-09/5%20Strategies_China%202060_english.pdf). Renewables accounts for 70% of primary energy in 2050, remainder comes from nuclear and CCS. Similarly, over 70% of electricity comes from RE. 14:00 Estimated installed solar in 2050 of 2500-3500 GW and for wind 1500-2500 GW, so around 10x present installation figures. Wide range depends on economics of alternatives as well as demand growth, which in turn depends on efficiency measures and other changes. 16:10 Carbon storage - which regions have potential storage sites (oil and gas reservoirs, aquifers, offshore) and what variables determine storage economics? Which sectors best for capture? The importance of transportation distance as a variable in CCS economics. 18:05 Transport: Harder to decarbonize because it is heterogeneous. Light-duty vehicles can be electrified fairly quickly. Other transport subsectors may peak emissions later. 19:04 Buildings sector - not hard to decarbonize based on technology, but faces implementation challenges, especially for retrofit. Needs more policy incentives. 20:10 Nuclear: Model assumes nuclear restricted to coastal locations, but still finds quite significant growth of nuclear. 20:40 How are various models used by policy makers? Models provide evidence to base policy decisions on, but it should be a two-way conversation. Models can also help financial players evaluate risks given trends and policies. 22:37 Top recommendations: (1) No new coal. (2) Power market reform / economic dispatch. (3) Cross-sectoral planning instead of just looking within sectors, like just planning EVs. (4) Including non-CO2 in carbon neutrality target, since otherwise difficult to control emissions in methane and agriculture. (5) New growth model for coal-dependent regions. (6) Integrate fiscal policies at provincial and national level, and within financial sector, with low-carbon transition. 25:48 How you got started in energy modeling. For further reading: https://chinadialogue.net/en/climate/chinas-2060-carbon-neutrality-target-opportunities-and-challenges/ https://cgs.umd.edu/research-impact/publications/implications-continued-coal-builds-14th-five-year-plan-china-eng https://cgs.umd.edu/research-impact/publications/five-strategies-achieve-chinas-2060-carbon-neutrality-goal-en https://cgs.umd.edu/research-impact/publications/high-ambition-coal-phaseout-china-feasible-strategies-through

Today, we're talking about a new book, China Goes Green, by Judith Shapiro and Yifei Li. The book explores the promise and drawbacks of Chinese environmental governance in light of the urgency of climate change and other issues. It examines Chinese environmental governance through examination of specific cases of environmental programs such as the war on air pollution, waste sorting, tree planting campaigns, dam building, the best and road, and overall energy and environmental planning. Judith Shapiro is Director of the Masters in Natural Resources and Sustainable Development for the School of International Service at American University and Chair of the Global Environmental Politics program. She was one of the first Americans to live in China after U.S.-China relations were normalized in 1979, and taught English at the Hunan Teachers' College in Changsha, China. Professor Shapiro's research and teaching focus on global environmental politics and policy, the environmental politics of Asia, and Chinese politics under Mao. She is the author, co-author or editor of nine books including including China's Environmental Challenges (Polity 2016), Mao's War against Nature (Cambridge University Press 2001). Dr. Shapiro earned her Ph.D. from American University's School of International Service. She holds an M.A. in Asian Studies from the University of California, Berkeley and another M.A. in Comparative Literature from the University of Illinois, Urbana. Her B.A. from Princeton University is in Anthropology and East Asian Studies. Our second guest is Yifei Li. Yifei Li is Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at NYU Shanghai and Global Network Assistant Professor at NYU. In the 2020-2021 academic year, he is also Residential Fellow at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich. His recent work appears in Current Sociology, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Environmental Sociology, and the Journal of Environmental Management. He received his Master's and Ph.D. degrees in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Bachelor's from Fudan University. Further reading: https://www.amazon.com/China-Goes-Green-Coercive-Environmentalism/dp/1509543120/ https://chinadialogue.net/en/cities/as-china-goes-green-should-the-world-celebrate-its-model/

In today's podcast, we're talking about why it's been so difficult to get financing for renewable energy in the Belt and Road, also known as the Belt-Road-Initiative or BRI. (Note the podcast was recorded prior to the announcement that China would pursue carbon neutrality by 2060.) Our first guest is Ma Tianjie, Tianjie is managing editor of China Dialogue and several times past guest of Environment China. Before joining China Dialogue, he was Greenpeace's Program Director for Mainland China. He holds a master's degree in environmental policy from American University, Washington D.C. Our second guest is Bai Yunwen. Yunwen is the director of Greenovation Hub. Founded in 2012, Greenovation Hub is, an independent Chinese NGO advancing sound climate and environment governance. Over the years, Yunwen has worked on climate diplomacy, energy policy, and international financial flows. Recently, she and her colleagues have worked with financial regulators to strengthen environmental and social practices on belt-and-road investments. The Belt-and-Road Initiative, aka One Belt One Road, was launched in 2013, and though membership is unofficial it is said to include between 70 countries (Wikipedia) to over 130 countries (according to the BRI website). It's stated goal is to "promote the connectivity of Asian, European and African continents and their adjacent seas, establish and strengthen partnerships among the countries … and realize diversified, independent, balanced and sustainable development in these countries." An analysis by MERICS showed that of US$ 75 billion in completed investments, two-thirds was energy related, most of which was in coal, oil, and gas projects. https://merics.org/en/analysis/powering-belt-and-road The vast majority of coal plants outside of China are funded by investment from China. https://qz.com/1760615/china-quits-coal-at-home-but-promotes-the-fossil-fuel-in-developing-countries/ According to a Greenpeace analysis in 2019, China's BRI investments have supported 67 GW of coal plants and just 12 GW of wind and solar plants. https://www.power-technology.com/news/china-belt-and-road-wind-solar/ The genesis of today's podcast is a report by Greenovation Hub, which discussed some of the reasons why it is difficult for Chinese wind and solar companies to invest and do business abroad. https://chinadialogue.net/en/energy/11952-chinese-firms-struggle-to-fund-renewables-projects-overseas/