China’s comet-like ascent to global economic powerhouse status over the past 30 years is based on its ability to manufacture everything and anything at reasonable labor and energy costs. Much of the West’s Foreign Direct Investment was spent on building factories to produce textiles, shoes, and other consumer products in the early years, then cars,...
Walking Shanghai’s streets nowadays is a quieter experience than four years ago. Cars and buses glide silently as the electrification of China’s transport system progresses. Electrification and the accompanying transition towards a more diversified energy mix – despite continued headlines decrying increased coal capacities – hold the potential to initiate a structural decline in emissions...
Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area (TEDA) The Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area – short TEDA – is a 440,000 m2 area between Tianjin City and the adjacent coast, housing some 600,000 inhabitants, comprising 10,000 industrial companies, more than 1,000 manufacturing companies, hospitals, high schools, etc. It was established in 1984 as one of China’s earliest national-level...
To: Minister Huang Runqiu, Ministry of Environment and Ecology No.12, East Chang’an Avenue, Dongcheng District, 100006 Beijing P.R. China advice@mee.gov.cn Honorable Minister Huang We are Climate Scorecard, a non-profit organization that monitors leading greenhouse gas-emitting countries’ climate policies and programs. Based on a review of China’s policies, we believe that China has, over the past...
Rating B (Moderate Progress)China’s agricultural landscape is as diverse as one can imagine: Lush mango plantations and pineapple fields stretch across Hainan Island. Shimmering rice terraces dominate the landscapes of Guangxi and Yunnan in the South, fields of wheat those in Sichuan – China’s “breadbasket” in the Southwest – and Henan in the center. Water-filled...
Rating: BPast discussions on the water in China have centred mainly on the use of water for hydroelectricity generation and the construction of megadams, e.g., the Three Gorges Dam, as well as the remediation of drinking water pollution due to leachate from agricultural activity and wastewater contamination from industrial production. Over the past five years,...
China Progress Report: Midway 2023 Rating: CChina’s decarbonization efforts stagnate as the country must balance between economic recovery, energy security, and meeting the 30/60 carbon targets.Greenhouse Gas or CO2 emissions-related data for the first half of 2023 appears unavailable via official sources such as the National Bureau of Statistics. The NBS usually publishes aggregated information,...
China’s legal institutions have increasingly had to deal with cases related to environmental issues over the past decade. In 2020 alone, Chinese prosecutors had to handle some 80,000 environmental public interest cases. Early environmental law first governed air and water pollution, industrial discharge, or agricultural soil contamination. Issues related to climate change have started to...
The latest installment of the IPCC’s Assessment Report AR6 stipulates that countries will have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50% over 1990 temperatures by 2030. Will China, the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, achieve this goal?While there is no crystal ball to fully predict the future of China’s emissions, the latest IPCC report has...
According to an IMF working paper on fossil fuel subsidies, East Asia and the Pacific region account for 48% of global energy subsidies. By country, China has been the biggest subsidizer in absolute terms, contributing 2.2 trillion USD in subsidies in 2020, or nearly 15% of GDP and approx. 1,600 USD per capita. However, different...
