Environment China

Lawsuits. If you've seen the films Erin Brockovich or A Civil Action, you're probably familiar with the concept of environmental public interest litigation. In the U.S. and other countries, the birth of environmental laws barely preceded the advent of environmental NGOs, who began suing to make sure those laws were enforced. Because of differences in China's laws and legal system, though, public interest suits have traditionally played little role in environmental enforcement in China.

But this situation is starting to change: recent amendments to China's Environmental Protection Law grant standing to NGOs meeting certain qualifications to raise environmental public interest suits. We’re thrilled to have sat down with Ma Rongzhen, a public interest lawyer at China’s oldest grassroots environmental NGO, Friends of Nature, to discuss the progress and potential for public interest suits to play a greater role in protecting China’s environment. If you're interested in reading more, check out FON's website (Chinese), where you can subscribe to their regular e-newsletter updates on the latest progress for environmental public interest suits raised by FON.

China is the world's largest importer of soy, with more of that soy coming from Brazil than any other country in the world. But what does the journey of a soybean look like? And what is the environmental impact of this massive trade? Luckily, more is being done to transform soybeans into "green beans" than you might realize -- and China is playing a key role in these efforts.

Join us as we interview Isabel Nepstad, programme manager at Solidaridad, a Dutch NGO that promotes sustainable production and consumption of the world's commodities. Isabel's previous experiences working with environmental NGOs in both Brazil and China inform her current work advocating for China to green its massive share of the world's trade in soy and other commodities. You can learn more about Isabel's and Solidaridad's work by checking out the Sustainable Soy Trade Platform (http://sustainablesoytrade.org/) and Solidaridad's website (http://www.solidaridadnetwork.org/), or by following Solidaridad's public WeChat account (search "禾众可持续发展中心").

In recent years, "citizen science" has spread across the globe, allowing people from all walks of life to contribute to scientific studies. For all-encompassing issues such as climate change, this approach has been instrumental in gathering new kinds of data from hard-to-access front lines.

Dr. Peng Kui, Program Manager at the Global Environmental Institute (GEI), has spearheaded a number of citizen science projects in China's Sanjiangyuan region in the west of the country, which hosts the headwaters of China's largest rivers. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Tyson, an expert on global citizen science initiatives at the Wilson Center, has been exploring citizen science initiatives in China and working with partners such as Peng Kui to help design innovative win-win projects wherein local people gather data on the health of these rivers and receive job training in sustainable industries.

On our show, Peng Kui and Elizabeth discuss the prospects for the nascent citizen science movement in China. You can find more on Peng Kui's work on the GEI website (http://new.geichina.org/en/about-us/gei-people-staff-steering-committee-etc/staff/pengkui/) and Elizabeth's work he(https://www.wilsoncenter.org/person/elizabeth-tyson), or on the New Security Beat blog of the Wilson Center (https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/).

Just two decades ago, wind and solar only accounted for a fraction of our global energy supply. Now, thanks to the rapid expansion of large wind and solar plants, especially in places like China, the conversation has changed from "whether" we can power our global economy with renewable energy, to "how" and "when".

Joining us is Eric Martinot, founder of the REN21 Renewables Global Status Reports. Eric shares with us about his conviction that the key to a clean energy future will lie in "distributed energy resources" -- things like small scale rooftop solar, microgrids, heat storage, and electric vehicles that can store and sell electricity back to the grid at off-peak hours.

Eric is now based again in Beijing, to launch his Global Initiative for Distributed and Locale Energy (DALE). To learn more or get even get involved in Eric's new initiative, check out http://www.martinot.info/dale

The power grid. Most of us don't think too much about what's behind the switches and the wires and the circuits. Will the lights come on when you flip on a light switch at home or will you be left in the dark? Will those electrons come from a solar farm or from an aging coal power plant? Well, some among us do think a lot about these questions, and more: how can we make our power sector run more efficiently and cleanly? How can we reduce the carbon and pollution footprint of the power sector?

In the second episode in our Green Power mini-series, we chat with Christopher James, a Principal with the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP), about China's latest round of power sector reform. We learn why "regional balancing,"  "economic/green dispatch," and a shift in the utility business-model paradigm are key to decarbonizing China's power sector. Chris joins us with over 30 years' experience working on implementing environmental regulations, and has been in and out of China for over a decade helping to translate this experience into practical improvements in China's power sector management system. To learn more about RAP and Chris' work, check out the RAP website at raponline.org.

In the first episode of our Green Power mini-series, we travel to the winter wonderland of Zhangjiakou in 2022—the year the city, along with Beijing, will host the Winter Olympics. Alongside this ambition, Zhangjiakou has set strong targets for renewable energy growth to combat the air pollution dogging the region. However, the city has been beset with a problem facing China’s renewable energy rollout across the board: its wind and solar energy is being wasted because the power grid continues to favor the existing fossil fuel fired power plants over new sources.

We chat with Anders Hove, Associate Director of Research at the Paulson Institute in Beijing, to learn how Zhangjiakou can overcome this problem of “curtailment” through integration in the broader Jing-jin-ji region—sending its excess green electrons to power electric vehicles in neighboring Beijing, for example. The solutions he describes extend beyond the Zhangjiakou predicament to all of China. Listen to find out what it will take for China to fully utilize its unmatched renewable energy resources before the 2022 Olympics. You can find the the Paulson Institute’s report Going for Gold: Championing Renewable Integration in Jing-Jin-Ji on this topic here.

The financial system is the lifeblood of the global economy, channeling capital to businesses to fuel economic growth -- but this economic growth has often come at the expense of our environment and climate. "Green Finance," then, describes a financial system or a set of financial tools that will help to allocate resources towards a green and low-carbon economy. China has emerged as a key leader of green finance, establishing a high-level G20 green finance study group. But green finance can take on many different forms and involve a host of different actors. So what exactly is green finance, and what's been happening in and around China to promote sustainable investment?

In this episode, we invite Calvin Quek, Head of Sustainable Finance at Greenpeace East Asia, to share his perspectives on what's driving the buzz behind green bonds and green finance in China and what makes an investment a sustainable one. Be sure to keep an eye out for Greenpeace's upcoming work on green finance in the prelude to the One Belt, One Road summit in May of this year.

China's smoggy skies dominate international headlines and threaten public health, spurring China's top policy-makers to declare a "war on pollution." But where does  PM 2.5 pollution come from? And what pollution control solutions have actually been working?
 
We sit down with Tonny Xie, Director of the Secretariat for the Clean Air Alliance of China (CAAC), to explore how local governments implement air pollution control targets, how cities like Shenzhen and Taiyuan are adapting air pollution control strategies to local conditions, and how CAAC is helping connect cities with technologies that may help clean up China's hazy skies. Read more about CAAC on their website: http://en.cleanairchina.org/.

Growing public awareness of environmental issues in China has prompted the rise of media outlets dedicated specifically to environmental topics. Among these, Kedao Media (可道), a new media platform, provides an outlet for Chinese youth to spur awareness and action among their peers on pressing environmental issues -- thus providing a pathway to "sustain the future" for the millennial generation.

We sit down with the president and founder of Kedao, Wu Yanyang, to discuss why he founded Kedao, how the platform became a reality, and how he gets Chinese millennials to care about things like carbon taxes and overseas wildlife protection. You can follow Kedao on WeChat at "kedaogreenpath" or online at www.kedao.info.