Environment China

Today, we’re looking at the topic of environmental standards for different industries in China, and in particular talking to Prof. Yixian Sun of the University of Bath in the U.K. about the findings of his new book published by MIT Press: Certifying China: The Rise and Limits of Transnational Sustainability Governance in Emerging Economies The book explores the potential and limits of transnational eco-certification in moving the world's most populous country toward sustainable consumption and production. Dr Sun identifies the forces that drive companies from three sectors—seafood, palm oil, and tea—to embrace eco-certification. The success of eco-certification, Dr Sun writes, will depend on the extent to which it wins the support of domestic actors in fast-growing emerging economies. Yixian Sun is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in International Development at the University of Bath, UK. He has a Ph.D. and Master's degree in International Relations / Political Science, from the Graduate Institute of Interna

Today, we’re looking at the issue of phasing out coal power in China, looking at a report issued recently by scholars at the University of Maryland Center for Global Sustainability and the California-China Climate Initiative at UC Berkeley. Our guest is Dr. Ryna Cui, who 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 a contributing author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report on the topic of global coal transition. And notably, she joined us on Podcast 84 in November 2019! The report we're discussing today is: "A Decade of Action: A Strategic Approach to Coal Phase-Down for China." It discusses a strategic plan to retire China's old or outdated capacity even as the country builds new coal plants. This is in line with government

In today's Chinese language Environment China podcast episode, we turn to the topic of women working in environmental and sustainability fields. We join two professionals to talk about their unique and interesting experiences and stories, and explore what's new in their particular fields. Today's guests are Si Jialing, who works on green finance at the British Embassy, and Zhang Miao, founder of R Cubic, who is sometimes known as the Walking Wastepedia. In terms of career paths, the two represent the extremes of having entered the field by chance, or having  cultivated a topic on a straight line from academic study to professional career. We ask what challenges they face in their respective fields, and what advice they have for newcomers to the workplace.  实在是听过到太多次"环保和可持续圈还是女生多”（也确实是事实），我们萌生了一个想法：那为什么不干脆做一系列在"可持续议题工作的女性”播客，一起来聊一聊她们独特又好玩的经历和故事，探一探她们所在行业的新鲜事呢？ 于是「环境中国」便有了个这期节目，在这次初尝试中，我们请到了在英国大使馆做绿色金融的佳灵和行走的“垃圾百科”张淼。她们或误打误撞入了圈，或从读书到工作一直在这个领域深耕，都逐渐在可持续议题的工作中找到了自己所关注和热爱的地方。她们在各自领域都有着什么样的挑战？对初入职场的小伙伴又有着什么样的建议呢？

In today's episode of Environment China, we bring you up to date on recent climate and energy developments in China, especially how the renewed quest for energy security affects clean energy and carbon goals. We also address how coal price reforms affect renewables, and the situation of green power trading and corporate renewable energy procurement. We'll also briefly touch on the results of the Two Sessions of the National People's Congress. Today our guests are Liu Yujing, China Power Manager at RMI China, and Caroline Zhu, Senior Low Carbon Electricity Analyst at S&P Global, and a past colleague of Yujing's at RMI.

Today we’re speaking to Andy Klump, the CEO and Founder of Clean Energy Associates, a company that provides services in the field of solar PV and battery storage quality assurance, supply chain management, and engineering. He founded the company in 2008 after working for several years at Trina, in an era before China was even a leader in solar manufacturing. Andy is an expert in world solar supply chains who is frequently quoted in publications such as PV Tech / PV Magazine, as well as in mainstream media.   In today’s episode, we cover: The scale of the largest solar players The upcoming solar and battery technologies and whether China is a tech leader The overall health of the Chinese solar industry The main challenges in the industry right now Whether other countries have the chance to compete with China on solar given its leading position now The relative complexity of he solar supply chain compared to the battery supply chain The extent to which materials supply bottlenecks will continue in both industr

In today's episode of Environment China, host Anders Hove hosts a special, work-related talk with Ye Ruiqi (Angel) of Greenpeace East Asia, Prof Zhang Sufang of North China Electric Power University, and Katerina Simou of the German Energy Agency (dena) about the topic of data centers, which are having an increasing effect on the environment and climate due to their rapidly rising energy consumption. In this episode, we talk not only about how data center operators are trying to go green (a topic we discussed with Angel on Environment China back in November 2019), but also the related topic of flexibility. Data center flexibility is potentially important because it enables data centers to modulate their load to better meet the needs of the grid, which in turn would enable greater uptake of renewable energy such as wind and solar. Since data centers in China are now considered one of the energy-intensive industries subject to the Dual Control policies—which limit energy consumption and energy intensity of prod

Today, for the BEN 2021 Year-in-Review Podcast, the core Beijing Energy Network team discusses the most exciting events and learnings from 2021. The Beijing Gang includes Alice, Cale, Cecilia, Florent, Hailey, Helena, Joyce, Li, Nick, Nina, Richard, Sally, and Xi Xi. In this podcast we discussed: - What brought each of us to the Beijing Energy Network - Our picks for most informative 2021 BEN events - Interesting people we met at BEN - The biggest change BEN brought to our life in 2021  

By popular request, the podcast turns to the topic of electric vehicles and trying to look at this from a market perspective instead of a policy perspective, and really examine how the market works and how it breaks down in terms of EV characteristics and market shares. Today we are speakng to two EV experts: Tu Le of Sino Auto Insights, a mobility consultancy, and of China Evs and More podcast; and James Gao (Gao Tianjian) of Mercedes and the Beijing Energy Network. In this podcast we discuss: Why EV sales in China are surging What types of vehicles are seeing the most growth, and how similar Chinese vehicles are to EVs abroad How the market breaks down in terms of foreign vs domestic How China is able to scale up manufacturing of potentially globally competitive products, and which EVs have the most export potential The situation with battery swap, which is now expanding from NIO and BAIC to new players The charging situation for China's apartment dwellers We end the podcast with a game of buy-sell-or-hol

https://twitter.com/derznovich Access our Live event on the link above!! Just a short teaser to tell you about an experiment we are planning to try on Monday morning BJ time, Sunday night U.S. time. Joyce and I will be hosting a Twitter Live interview with James Gao of BEN and Tu Le of Sino Auto Insights and the China EVs and More podcast. If we manage to figure out the technical stuff, it will start at 8:00 am Monday China time, and that’s 7 pm Eastern, 4 pm Pacific on Sunday. In this upcoming episode, we are going to talk about the China EV market, which is poised to surpass 3 million vehicles this year and 5 million next year. We’re going to talk about China’s EV startups, international brands, and what makes China so disruptive in the EV space. We’ll touch on some issues like range, design, battery size, and charging. We’ll bring it back to the issue of emissions and the environment, and take your questions. If all goes well, we’ll play a game of buy-sell-or-hold with our esteemed guests, and our audience

The food industry has a major ecological and climate impact. A wide variety of efforts are underway to reduce that impact, including regenerative ‘agriculture, development and promotion of new or existing plant-based foods, and organic agriculture. In the EU and UK, for example, 40% of agricultural land use is influenced by the top 10 food brands and supermarkets. While many are currently part of the problem, given their size and influence, they can be, and need to be part of the solution. Our guests today are Jinqi Yu of the Ellen Macarthur Foundation and Yifan Yang of Oatly. Jinqi currently works as consultant for Food Program at the Ellen Macarthur Foundation. She is dedecated to accerlerate the transition towards a circular economy and has been working with the foundation since 2016. Yifan is the sustainability manager at Oatly. She is responsible for the holistic sustainability in the value chain of Oatly. Founded in the 1990s, Oatly is a Swedish food company that produces alternatives to dairy products

Today we are back talking about global climate policy with Li Shuo of Greenpeace East Asia. The COP26 or Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change just wrapped up a bit more than a week ago and we’ve had time to take stock and see some of the media coverage of that, a lot of which was critical. We discuss the shortcomings of other countries' climate commitments, such as on climate finance. We are also digesting the communique issued by China and the US about climate cooperation. In the podcast we referenced the optimistic scenario of Carbon Action Tracker, which projects 1.8 degrees C of climate change if all targets and commitments are fully implemented: https://climateactiontracker.org/global/temperatures/.

Today’s episode is a very special episode for us, as we’re honored to have three founding members of Beijing Energy Network, Brendan Acord, Jason Lee, and Julian Wong, with us to celebrate our approximately 100th episode at Environment China.  The episode has 3 very different parts. These time stamps should help you navigate: In the first segment, starting at 0:03, we discuss how BEN got started, what made it different, and what it was like working on energy and the environment in 2008-09. At 0:22, Joyce and Helena discuss BEN in the past few years and how it has evolved. At 0:26, we look out to the next 13 years of world climate and energy futures, by playing a game of buy-sell-or-hold. Our guests: Brendan Acord came to China after graduating from UCSD, He worked at AES consulting and later BrightSource Energy, and he is currently in Chengdu where he manages a solar PV consultancy which has projects in China and abroad. Julian Wong is a corporate lawyer, currently at QuantumScape, a company in Silicon Vall

This year has been packed with China environmental and climate news, and there’s no way this podcast could keep up. But today we’re going to try! Our guests today are Li Shuo of Greenpeace East Asia and Christoph Nedopil-Wang of Shanghai Fudan University (and Global Bavarian). We’re going to tackle the following hot topics: The biodiversity COP in Kunming The upcoming Glasgow COP The China announcement on finance for coal abroad And upcoming climate finance policies

Today, we have a fascinating discussion about corporate sustainability at one of China's most famous Internet companies. Guan Li, who joins on her own behalf, discusses her work on corporate sustainability in both the US and China and the status of Meituan's efforts on corporate sustainability and waste reduction/recycling. Guan Li works as Senior Manager of Corporate Social Responsibility at Meituan Waimai, one of China's largest online food delivery apps. She leads the Meituan Green Tech fund program (greentech.meituan.com). Li has over six years of experience as a corporate sustainability professional. After graduation from Macalester College in St Paul, MN, she worked in sustainability roles at Metro Transit in Minnesota, at Amazon, and at the Chinese food delivery app Ele.me. She has expertise in energy efficiency, carbon emissions calculation, renewable energy, supply chain labor rights, and circular economy. Time stamps: 0:55 - About Guan Li's work at Meituan 2:16 - The two main strategies: waste reduc

Today we will be talking about a new report that discusses one of the most critical topics for global emissions reduction: How China’s most carbon-intensive industries are planning to decarbonize. Since September 2020 when President Xi Jinping announced that China would aim to peak emissions before 2030 and reach carbon neutrality by 2060, some of China’s biggest companies have committed to new climate targets to meet that national goal. In this report, Columbia Center for Global Energy Policy Non-Resident Fellow and Princeton PhD student Ned Downie looks at the three of the highest emitting industries in China: electricity, steel, and cement and helps us understand exactly what those announcements add up to.  Further reading: Edmund Downie, "Getting to 30-60: How China’s Biggest Coal Power, Cement, and Steel Corporations Are Responding to National Decarbonization Pledges," Columbia Center on Global Energy Policy, 25 August 2021, at https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/research/report/getting-30-60-how-china

Today we will be talking about China’s new carbon market, from the market perspective, with Jeff Huang of AEX, a Hong Kong based company seeking to create a transparent and neutral forward trading facility for hedging power and emissions in China. AEX empowers China power and emissions market participants with market data and analytical tools, market insight, and by sharing international trading and risk-management best-practices. Here are a few things we cover in this episode: An assessment of early trading in China's newly launched national carbon market. We hear Jeff's opinion on how benchmark allocation could evolve into auction-based allocation. Jeff discusses clean-dark spreads, which is the difference in price between the revenue from the power price versus the costs in terms of fuel (the coal price) plus the carbon price. Jeff talks about the provincial spot electricity market pilots, in particular Guangdong, and how much traders have to learn to master these markets. We discuss the importance of fut

[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 unde

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

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

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 an