China Country Reports

China is among the countries with the longest tradition of forest recuperation programs. The government launched the Three-North Shelterbelt Program as early as the 1970s. Also called the Great Green Wall, it is one of the oldest public efforts to increase forest area in China. It aims to plant 4,500 kilometers of trees through the…

Much has been lamented about China’s constant increase in coal capacities to ensure its energy security in recent years. At the same time, headlines proclaiming China’s world market leadership in wind and solar energy equally abound.Indeed, looking at the numbers, both are true. While coal capacities have increased over the past ten years, the overall…

With its vast geographical expanse and diverse climate zones, China experiences significant challenges during the summer season. The rise in temperature affects people and animals, forests, arable land, rivers, coastlines, mountain regions, etc. It causes environmental stress, public health and food security issues, and huge economic losses. According to a 2021 Greenpeace study, more climate…

China today owns the world’s most extensive Emissions Trading System (ETS), with 5.1 billion metric tons of CO2 emissions covered annually. To date, China’s ETS includes more than 2,200 companies in China’s power sector. The first stage includes only power sector companies, but the scheme will ultimately include over 6,000 production companies from different industries….

On January 13, 2024, Taiwan’s 20 million eligible voters were asked to vote for a new president. Taiwan’s constitution compelled incumbent President Tsai Ying-wen from the Democratic Progressive Party to step down as president after having served out two four-year terms. After the elections, her former Vice President, Lai Ching-te, was named President-Elect. The president…

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…

The People’s Republic of China does not recognize the term “indigenous people” for its 55 ethnic minorities (incl. groups in Taiwan), even though in 1990 the country declared itself a supporter of indigenous rights elsewhere. Instead, China calls its various ethnic groups “ethnic minorities” (少数民族). The difference in terminology can be explained in historic terms….

For millennia, China has been a rural, agriculture-based country. While 56.1% or 5.29 mio km2 (2020) of China’s landmass is still considered agricultural land, the importance of agriculture for the country’s development has been steadily decreasing over the past decades. There are currently about 3.9 mio km2 of pasture and between 1.3. – 1.6 mio…

The State Grid Corporation and the China Southern Power Grid Corporation   China today operates on two wide area synchronous grids: the State Grid in the North and China Southern Power Grid in the South. The grids are operated by two respectively named grid operating companies. China’s electric power industry started at the end of…

Electrification of China’s transport system, industry, heating, and other sectors is the backbone of the country’s drive to decarbonize its development. Therefore, it is important to take a look at the development of the sources of electricity: thermal combustion for power and the simultaneous growth of output and use of renewable energy sources like wind…

China has been the world’s largest and most important car market now for a number of years, with an estimated 302 million passenger cars on the road. More cars are produced and sold in China than in the USA or in the EU despite some decline in sales in more recent years. The China Association…

China, like many countries, has been feeling the effects of climate change over the past decades in the form of an increase in extreme weather events. Some estimates say that floods, droughts, and storms are incurring direct economic losses of 25 to 37.5 billion USD per year. Other reports place that number at 1% of…

In past articles, we discussed the importance of data monitoring, availability, and quality in order to track emissions developments resulting from policies and required measures introduced by governments.China has been notoriously lagging in data availability, quality, and reporting. Data must be collected, for example, from companies included in the various Emissions Trading Systems across the…

Significant improvement in air quality index (AQI) in eight Chinese cities from March to June 2022; slight decrease in coal output from April 2021 to April 2022; a drop of 14.5 in wind energy output while a 25% growth rate in solar PV between April 2021 and April 2022.Aggregated actual emission data from China is…

Environmental protection has been on the minds of young Chinese for decades. When I introduced my company’s environmental youth education program in China in 2003, university students from bachelor freshmen to master’s students were active in all types of on-campus programs, “Green Clubs” and other activities to disseminate knowledge and create awareness for waste water…