Reports

01.06.15

Rebalancing China’s Energy Strategy

Damien Ma
Paulson Institute
At a high-level meeting of China’s top finance and economics body in June 2014, President Xi Jinping called for a sweeping energy revolution in China, centered on five areas: demand, production, technology, institutional governance, and global...

China’s Double-Edged Pact

Martin Adams
New York Times
Whether China is a climate hero or a climate villain is a matter of polarized debate. At one extreme, the world’s biggest carbon-emitter is portrayed as a wasteful bogeyman that obstructs efforts to halt global warming and “steals” clean-tech jobs...

In Step to Lower Carbon Emissions, China Will Place a Limit on Coal Use in 2020

Edward Wong
New York Times
In theory, coal consumption might increase beyond 2020, but some researchers say economic trends show the rate of growth in coal use slowing in coming years and peaking about 2020.

China’s Coal Use Actually Falling Now (For the First Time this Century)

Lauri Myllyvirta
Greenpeace
The data suggests the world's largest economy is finally starting to radically slow down its emission growth, and it comes ahead of key talks next year on a new global climate and energy deal.

China’s Carbon Plans: Secrecy and Oversupply Darken Outlook

Stian Reklev and Kathy Chen
Reuters
The world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases risks repeating mistakes made in carbon trading in Europe by flooding its pilot markets with free permits.

Environment

06.27.14

Germany’s Renewables Paradox a Warning Sign for China

from chinadialogue
From the hay field behind his house, Gunter Jurischka points out the solar panels glittering from the town’s rooftops and the towering wind turbines spinning lazily on the horizon.Thanks to Germany’s now famous Energiewende (or “energy transition”)...

Infographics

06.20.14

The Problem with Chinese Gas Prices

from Sohu
Implementing higher fuel standards in order to reduce air pollution is a good thing. But the “Big Two” oil companies who control the petroleum industry—Sinopec and CNPC—should take responsibility for the increased cost. Consumers already pay huge...

Wide Support on Chinese Social Media for Boat Attack

Didi Kirsten Tatlow
New York Times
After a Chinese fishing boat rammed and sank a Vietnamese fishing boat near a Chinese deep sea oil rig placed in waters contested by both countries, social media reaction appeared overwhelmingly supportive — even bellicose.

China Tensions Grow After Vietnamese Ship Sinks in Clash

Jane Perlez
New York Times
Hair-trigger tensions in the South China Sea escalated as China and Vietnam traded accusations over the sinking of a Vietnamese fishing vessel in the vicinity of a Chinese oil rig parked in disputed waters off Vietnam’s coast.

Russia Signs 30-Year Gas Deal with China

BBC
Russia's President Vladimir Putin has signed a multi-billion dollar, 30-year gas deal with China, 10 years in the making, and worth some $400 billion.

Conversation

02.19.14

China in ‘House of Cards’

Steven Jiang, Donald Clarke & more
China figures heavily in the second season of the Netflix series House of Cards, but how accurately does the show portray U.S.-China relations? Steven Jiang, a journalist for CNN in Beijing, binged-watched all thirteen recently-released web-only...

Environment

01.08.14

The Drying Up of China’s Largest Freshwater Lake

from chinadialogue
When Jiang Minsheng moored his fishing boat on the eastern shore of Jiangxi’s Poyang Lake in November last year, he didn’t expect to it to be marooned. The fisherman’s village is on an island in the middle of the freshwater lake, once China’s...

China May Raise Iran Oil Imports With New Contract: Sources

Chen Aizhu
Reuters
China may buy more Iranian oil this year as a state trader is negotiating a new light crude contract that could raise imports from Tehran to levels not seen since tough Western sanctions were imposed in 2012, running the risk of upsetting Washington.

China’s Coal Supply Will Soon Weigh 40 Percent More Than Earth’s Population

Gwynn Guilford
Atlantic
The country's excessive past investments in coal have produced a surplus, and today, lowered prices mean mining barons are struggling to pay off loans. 

Myanmar-China Gas Pipeline Goes Into Operation

Global Post
As well as diversifying China's sources of fuel, by supplying energy to the vast and less developed west the Myanmar-China gas pipeline could help Beijing's attempts to promote economic growth there.

Environment

03.25.13

Chinese Nuclear Disaster “Highly Probable” by 2030

from chinadialogue
Some members of the nuclear power industry rely too much on theoretical calculations, when only experience can provide real accuracy.The lifetime of nuclear reactors is calculated in “reactor-years.” One reactor-year means one reactor operating for...

Books

03.20.13

Green Innovation in China

Joanna I. Lewis
As the greatest coal-producing and consuming nation in the world, China would seem an unlikely haven for wind power. Yet the country now boasts a world-class industry that promises to make low-carbon technology more affordable and available to all. Conducting an empirical study of China’s remarkable transition and the possibility of replicating their model elsewhere, Joanna I. Lewis adds greater depth to a theoretical understanding of China’s technological innovation systems and its current and future role in a globalized economy. Lewis focuses on China’s specific methods of international technology transfer, its forms of international cooperation and competition, and its implementation of effective policies promoting the development of a home-grown industry. Just a decade ago, China maintained only a handful of operating wind turbines—all imported from Europe and the United States. Today, the country is the largest wind power market in the world, with turbines made almost exclusively in its own factories. Though setbacks are possible, China could one day come to dominate global wind turbine sales, becoming a hub of technological innovation and a major instigator of low-carbon economic change. —Columbia University Press

Environment

02.28.13

Drought and Earthquakes Pose “Enormous Risk” to China’s Nuclear Plans

from chinadialogue
When the Fukushima nuclear disaster struck, China was building new nuclear power capacity at a rate unprecedented in world history: 40 percent of all reactors planned or under construction were in China. Targets for installed nuclear generation...

Environment

02.13.13

Nuclear Fusion: An Answer to China’s Energy Problems?

from chinadialogue
The global nuclear sector has been through something of an apocalyptic patch since the disaster at Fukushima—from power station shutdowns in Japan and Germany to waste-plan chaos in the U.K. to doubts about China’s ability to showcase new reactor...

China Burns Half of Coal Consuption Worldwide, US Figures Show

Adam Vaughn
Guardian
US government figures shows that China overtook the US as the world's biggest carbon emitter in 2007 and became world's largest energy consumer in 2010

Mongolia Finds China Can Be Too Close for Comfort

Charles Hutzler
Associated Press
In a global rush to get rich off China, Mongolia works to ensure that Chinese investment doesn't become Chinese dominance.

Environment

11.15.12

China’s Low-Carbon Zones Lack Motivation, Guidance, and Ideas

from chinadialogue
None of China’s so-called low-carbon industrial zones currently live up to the name. That’s the conclusion to draw from the work of the U.S. Institute for Sustainable Communities (ISC), which this year released a guide for the development of green...

The South China Sea Oil Card

M. Taylor Fravel
Diplomat
Over the weekend, the China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) quietly announced that nine new blocks in the South China Sea were now open to foreign oil companies for exploration and development. This move reflects one of the starkest efforts by...

Caixin Media

03.09.12

Ex-Officials Battle Plan to Build Nuclear Plants

Work on China’s nuclear power plants started picking up again about a year after the Fukushima disaster in Japan. But the meltdown in March 2011 was still fresh on the minds of four retired cadres in Anhui Province’s Wangjiang County.They filed a...

Sinica Podcast

07.01.10

What If the BP Oil Spill Happened in China...

Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn & more from Sinica Podcast
As Gady Epstein reports in this special dispatch, “some time ago, we reached the China Zone in the BP story.” The China Zone is—for those of you who haven’t heard of it yet—the point at which a reasonable observer will believe almost anything about...

Reports

01.01.09

A Roadmap for US-China Cooperation on Energy and Climate Change

Asia Society
The world faces no greater challenge in the 21st century than arresting the rapidly increasing accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that cause climate change. The two largest producers of these gases are the United States and China...

Reports

08.24.08

Energy Interests and Alliances: China, America and Africa

Angelica Austin, Danila Bochkarev, and Willem van der Geest
EastWest Institute
According to conventional wisdom, the United States and China are locked in a high-stakes competition for energy resources around the world, particularly in Africa. Against the backdrop of highly volatile oil prices, mounting concerns about global...

Reports

02.01.07

Coal in a Changing Climate

Daniel A. Lashof, Duncan Delano, Jon Devine, Barbara Finamore, Debbie Hammel, David Hawkins, Allen Hershkowitz, Jack Murphy, JingJing Qian, Patrice Simms, Johanna Wald
Barbara A. Finamore
Natural Resources Defense Council
The current coal fuel cycle is among the most destructive activities on earth, placing an unacceptable burden on public health and the environment. There is no such thing as “clean coal.” As the two largest coal consumers, the United States and...