Sinica Podcast
01.13.12
Year-End Roundup
from Sinica Podcast
It was the year of the housing market (up then down), Ai Weiwei’s imprisonment, Wukan, the Wenzhou train crash, air pollution, gutter oil, tainted milk, clenbuterol, China bulls and bears, government transparency, the soaring price of Maotai, Guo...
Environment
01.02.12
Chinese Demand Stokes U.S. Coal Battle
TRINIDAD, Colorado—When the New Elk mine reopened amid windblown prairies last winter, it attracted little attention. But the mine—a long shaft boring through some of the world’s most valuable coal—strikes at the heart of a growing debate about the...
Environment
01.02.12
As China Grows Rich, Rainforests Fall
An incredible forest lies on its side in this gritty industrial town in southeastern China. On the southern bank of the Yangtze River nine-foot-diameter kevazingo trees from Gabon rub against Cambodian rosewoods and Indonesian teaks. Nearby, rust-...
Environment
01.01.12
China’s Rising Consumer Class Sparks Climate Change Fears
TUOJIA VILLAGE, China—When you think about China’s growing greenhouse gas emissions, you probably don’t think of people like Zhang Chao or his father Zhang Dejun. Zhang Chao, a thirty-five-year-old middle school teacher living in small city in...
Environment
11.14.11
China’s Rise Creates Clouds of U.S. Pollution
At more than 9,000 feet along the crest of Oregon’s Cascade mountain range, the top of this snow-covered peak normally enjoys some of America’s cleanest air. So when sensitive scientific instruments picked up ozone—the chief component of smog—at...
Sinica Podcast
09.23.11
The Gutter Oil Podcast
from Sinica Podcast
“It was really distressing for me to talk to a WHO expert and have him tell me, ‘I have no idea where it’s safe to buy food here ...’” — Sharon LaFraniere.When Luoyang journalist Li Xiang broke China’s latest food scandal last week, exposing the...
Sinica Podcast
08.27.11
Zhao Liang and the South-North Water Diversion Project
from Sinica Podcast
This week on Sinica: China makes an about-face on Libya, we discuss a recent controversy in Beijing’s arts community over independent filmmaker Zhao Liang, and get an on-the-ground update on the state of China’s South-North Water Diversion Project,...
Sinica Podcast
08.19.11
Not in My Backyard
from Sinica Podcast
While some Chinese media have flown into high dudgeon over allegations of sun-exposed hamburger buns at McDonalds, powder-based soy milk at KFC, and pork broth made from concentrate at Ajisen, a more grassroots protest gained notice across China...
Reports
07.18.11
China’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Mitigation Policies
Peony Lui
Congressional Research Service
The 112th Congress continues to debate whether and how the United States should address climate change. Most often, this debate includes concerns about the effects of U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions controls if China and other major countries...
Sinica Podcast
06.03.11
Water on the Brink
from Sinica Podcast
As the southern Yangtze region struggles with its worst drought in a century, China’s grand plans for water diversion projects and its Three Gorges Dam have come under renewed scrutiny, as have expectations Beijing can maintain economic stability...
Reports
06.01.11
“My Children Have Been Poisoned”: A Public Health Crisis in Four Chinese Provinces
Human Rights Watch
Over the past decade, numerous mass lead poisoning incidents have been reported across China. In response, Environmental Protection Ministry officials have become more outspoken, directing local officials to increase supervision of factories and...
Reports
04.27.11
China’s Green Revolution
chinadialogue
In March, China officially adopted its Twelfth Five-Year Plan, a blueprint for the country’s development from 2011 to 2015. Its green targets will shape China’s action on the environment over the next five years. To mark the occasion, chinadialogue...
Reports
04.01.11
The China New Energy Vehicles Program: Challenges and Opportunities
World Bank
In June 2010, the World Bank organized a team of international experts in urban transport, electric vehicle technologies, and policy and environment to carry out a survey study of China’s New Energy Vehicle (NEV) Program. The preliminary findings of...
Reports
03.11.11
Environmental and Social Impact Assessment: Urumqi District Heating Project
World Bank
The city of Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in westernmost China, is experiencing rapid urbanization and economic growth, which poses challenges to Urumqi Municipal Government in providing adequate and efficient public...
Reports
01.01.11
Rural Energy Consumption and Its Impacts on Climate Change
He Jianan
Global Environmental Institute
Global Envionment Institute has started a rural energy program, focusing on the effects of rural energy consumption on climate change, and seeking out short- to long-term solutions to rural energy consumption and emissions, along with selecting key...
Reports
12.01.10
Catastrophe Insurance Policy for China
World Bank
The vast majority of China's population lies to the southeast of a line running from Beijing to Sichuan. This entire region is subjected to major floods each year, while typhoons affect the southern and eastern coastal areas and major...
Reports
11.01.10
Energy Innovation
He Jianan
Council on Foreign Relations
Low-carbon technology innovation and diffusion are both essential aspects of an effective response to climate change. Studying China, India, and Brazil, the authors of this report examine how innovation in low-carbon technologies occurs and how the...
Reports
10.01.10
A Case Study on Large-Scale Forestland Acquisition in China
He Jianan
Landesa
Rural development and forest restoration have been key priorities for the Chinese government over the last decade, and indeed many countries in the world. To address these priorities, the Chinese government has aggressively promoted new investment—...
Books
10.01.10
When a Billion Chinese Jump
As a young child, Jonathan Watts believed if everyone in China jumped at the same time, the earth would be shaken off its axis, annihilating mankind. Now, more than thirty years later, as a correspondent for The Guardian in Beijing, he has discovered it is not only foolish little boys who dread a planet-shaking leap by the world's most populous nation. When a Billion Chinese Jump is a road journey into the future of our species. Traveling from the mountains of Tibet to the deserts of Inner Mongolia via the Silk Road, tiger farms, cancer villages, weather-modifying bases, and eco-cities, Watts chronicles the environmental impact of economic growth with a series of gripping stories from the country on the front line of global development. He talks to nomads and philosophers, entrepreneurs and scientists, rural farmers and urban consumers, examining how individuals are trying to adapt to one of the most spectacular bursts of change in human history, then poses a question that will affect all of our lives: Can China find a new way forward or is this giant nation doomed to magnify the mistakes that have already taken humanity to the brink of disaster? —Simon & Schuster
Reports
08.01.10
Addressing the Environmental and Social Governance Challenges of Chinese Mining Companies Operating in Africa
Global Environmental Institute
The growth of China’s consumption of base metals is reflected in increased overseas engagement in mining activities, particularly in Africa. There is increasing concern about the environmental and social implications of China’s overseas involvement...
Reports
08.01.10
Addressing the Environmental and Social Governance Challenges of Chinese Mining Companies Operating in Africa
He Jianan
Global Environmental Institute
There is growing concern about the environmental and social implications of China’s overseas involvement in Africa, especially in environmentally-sensitive sectors such as mining and other extractive industries. In particular, Chinese firms are...
Reports
07.14.10
China and the United States - A Comparison of Green Energy Programs and Policies
Peony Lui
Congressional Research Service
China has experienced tremendous economic growth over the last three decades, with an annual average increase in gross domestic product of 9.8 percent during that period. This has led to an increasing demand for energy, spurring China to add an...
Sinica Podcast
07.09.10
China’s Environmental Collapse
from Sinica Podcast
After the collapse of international climate change talks in Copenhagen in 2009, Mark Lynas’ devastating article, published in the Guardian, laid the blame squarely at China’s feet, accusing the Chinese government of deliberately scuttling American-...
Sinica Podcast
07.01.10
What If the BP Oil Spill Happened in China...
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
06.30.10
Breaking the Ice on Environmental Open Information
Natural Resources Defense Council
On May 1, 2008, the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Open Government Information and the Ministry of Environmental Protection Measures on Open Environmental Information (trial) entered into effect. These regulations stand...
Reports
06.01.10
Game-Changing China: Lessons from China about Disruptive Low Carbon Innovation
Nesta
Big hydro, big solar photovoltaic, and big wind—these are the usual focus of accounts of low-carbon technologies in China. But a very different type of innovation—ranging from a farm cooperative in Yunnan, to woodchip and corn pellets in rural...
The NYRB China Archive
05.27.10
The Message from the Glaciers
from New York Review of Books
It was not so long ago that the parts of the globe covered permanently with ice and snow, the Arctic, Antarctic, and Greater Himalayas (“the abode of the snows” in Sanskrit), were viewed as distant, frigid climes of little consequence. Only the most...
Reports
05.21.10
Navigating Climate Change: An Agenda for U.S.-Chinese Cooperation
EastWest Institute
This paper focuses on two areas that pose the biggest obstacles to progress in bilateral and multilateral efforts to address climate change concerns: the trade-off between emission caps and development goals; and technology transfer and intellectual...
Reports
05.01.10
Seeding Positive Impacts: How Business and Civil Society Can Contribute to the Sustainability of Chinese Agriculture
Sara Segal-Williams
BSR
From farm-level impacts related to pesticide and fertilizer use, to the processing and packaging of the final product, processes along the agricultural supply chain in China have an adverse environmental health impact. Companies and civil society...
Sinica Podcast
04.23.10
The Eulogy and the Aftershocks
from Sinica Podcast
Coming twenty-one years after the death of former Party Secretary Hu Yaobang, Premier Wen Jiabao’s surprise eulogy to his former mentor last week was the subject of much discussion among China-watchers worldwide. In today’s episode of Sinica, we...
Reports
04.01.10
Who Owns Carbon in Rural China?
He Jianan
Landesa
Despite decades of rapid economic growth in China, rural areas remain largely undeveloped. Rural China is home to more than 195 million hectares of forestland—the equivalent of around 5 billion tons of carbon. Rights to forestland are either 1)...
The NYRB China Archive
12.07.09Copenhagen: China’s Oppressive Climate
from New York Review of Books
As the UN’s Climate Change Conference opens in Copenhagen this week, much attention will focus on China and the United States, who are, by a wide margin, the world’s two leading emitters of greenhouse gases. The success of the conference will depend...
Reports
11.01.09
A Roadmap for U.S.-China Collaboration on Carbon Capture and Sequestration
Asia Society
The United States and China are the world's largest greenhouse gas emitters. Collaboration between the two nations, therefore, offers the greatest opportunity for achieving meaningful reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions. The time is...
The NYRB China Archive
10.29.09China’s Boom: The Dark Side in Photos
from New York Review of Books
I have seen some woeful scenes of industrial apocalypse and pollution in my travels throughout China, but there are very few images that remain vividly in my mind. This is why the photographs of Lu Guang are so important. A fearless documentary...
Reports
02.13.09
The Pivotal Relationship: How Obama Should Engage China
EastWest Institute
Providing their respective hopes and expectations on what they would like to see in the Obama administration’s China policy are Liu Xuecheng and Robert Oxnam, who both envision opportunities for reframing the China-U.S. relationship in a way that...
Reports
01.31.09
Strengthening US-China Climate Change and Energy Engagement
Sara Segal-Williams
Natural Resources Defense Council
The United States of America and the People's Republic of China are both key players in international efforts to address global warming and global energy security. Indeed, they are by far the two largest emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in...
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
01.01.08
China’s Green Buildings and Sustainable Cities
Natural Resources Defense Council
The National Resources Defense Council is documenting the way in which it is promoting environmentally friendly growth principles in urban planning in China. This includes it partnership with Chinese governmental organizations in promoting and...
Reports
12.01.07
Wanjiazhai Water Transfer Project: Key Factors and Assesment
World Bank
China's impressive economic performance since 1978 with a growth rate of GDP of 9.5 percent per year has been mainly in the industrial and commercial sectors and is concentrated in urban areas; as a result, urban water demand has increased by...
ChinaFile Recommends
10.14.07Choking on Growth
New York Times
A series of articles and multimedia examining China’s pollution crisis.
Reports
10.01.07
The Impact of Regulatory Takings by the Chinese State on Rural Land Tenure and Property Rights
He Jianan
Landesa
With the realization of China’s rapid ecological deterioration, partly caused by irresponsible logging, the Chinese government has in recent years taken a series of drastic measures to improve forest coverage. One important approach was to declare...
Reports
08.27.07
A Guide on Sustainable Overseas Silviculture by Chinese Enterprises
He Jianan
Global Environmental Institute
This report prescribes the fundamental principles to observe in sustainable forestry maintenance, or silviculture, and the basic requirements for the Chinese enterprises engaged in realizing sustainable silviculture. The Guide applies to regulating...
Reports
04.01.07
NRDC Strives to Minimize the Toll From Coal in China
Natural Resources Defense Council
NRDC is working with China to reduce this reliance on coal—and cut down on coal's accompanying health and safety hazards—by aggressively targeting energy efficiency and renewable energy goals, and promoting coal gasification with carbon capture...
Reports
01.12.07
The State of Wildlife Trade in China
World Wildlife
This edition aims to highlight wildlife trade trends in threatened and at-risk wildlife from the past year, with an emphasis on the impact of China’s consumption on globally important biodiversity ‘hotspots.’ Surveys in 2007 found that while illegal...
Reports
04.20.05
China’s Growing Interest in Latin America
Peony Lui
Congressional Research Service
Over the past year, increasing attention has focused on China’s growing interest in Latin America. Most analysts appear to agree that China’s primary interest in the region is to gain greater access to needed resources—such as oil, copper, and iron—...
Reports
01.01.03
Fuel Cell Vehicle Development in China
Sara Segal-Williams
Natural Resources Defense Council
Hydrogen fuel cells (FCs) are one of the most promising new technologies of the twenty-first century for electricity generation. Because a fuel cell directly converts the chemical energy of hydrogen fuel to electrical energy without burning the fuel...
The NYRB China Archive
10.18.01China’s Assault on the Environment
from New York Review of Books
In 1956 Chairman Mao wrote the poem “Swimming,” about a dam to be built across the Yangtze River. This is its second stanza:A magnificent project is formed. The Bridge, it flies! Spanning North and South, and a Natural Barrier becomes a thoroughfare...
The NYRB China Archive
10.21.99Room at the Top
from New York Review of Books
The last time I was in the Himalayas, I met a young, highly Westernized Tibetan who, misled perhaps by my Indian features (born in England, I’ve never lived in the subcontinent), started talking to me about the strange ways of the exotic foreigners...
The NYRB China Archive
02.01.96Is There Enough Chinese Food?
from New York Review of Books
1.Many Americans think they know something about Chinese food. But very few know anything about food in China, about the ways in which it is grown, stored, distributed, eaten, and wasted, about its effects on the country’s politics, and about its...
The NYRB China Archive
09.23.93The Chinese Miracle?
from New York Review of Books
Over the last few months the news and reportage about China have become almost incomprehensibly divided between two points of view. According to one set of reports, China is now confirmed as an economic “colossus,” shaking off all the trammels of...