In today's podcast, we talk to two private sector experts working on the topic of corporate ESG - which refers to corporate policies and performance on the environment, sustainability, and governance. In the first part of the episode, we focus on the policies that have driven companies in China towards greater emphasis of ESG, and which companies are working most seriously on the topic of ESG. We discuss the process of certifying the first project in China under a new international ESG standard for infrastructure. And we close by examining what's next for ESG in China.

Our first guest is Dang Anqi. Anqi is an ESG and sustainable investment analyst at Allianz France. She is leading the climate-related financial disclosure and the Sciences Based Targets Initiative at Allianz Investment Management. Her report on  sustainable investment won the International Climate Reporting Awards in 2019. (Link: https://www.allianz.fr/content/dam/onemarketing/azfr/common/marque/pdf/BROCH_AZ_AIM_REPORT-2020-EXE_1507.pdf.) 

Our second guest is Tracy Li, senior manager at SGS Certification and Business Enhancement. SGS is a multinational company headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland which provides inspection, verification, testing and certification services. SGS China was established in 1991 with its head office in Beijing, and now has 78 branches in China, and over 15,000 employees.

This episode could almost serve as a reference document to the topic of ESG in China, and at points there are a lot of laws and acronyms mentioned in the episode. Here are a few of the key resources you may want to have in front of you to keep up.

2019 Climate Bonds Initiative report on China's green bond market: https://www.climatebonds.net/resources/reports/china-green-bond-market-2019-research-report

Major regulator milestones mentioned:

In 2016, the People's Bank of China and other ministries issued the Guidelines on Establishing a Green Financial System: https://greenfinanceplatform.org/financial-measures-database/chinas-guidelines-establishing-green-financial-system

In 2018, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) issued a directive concerning ESG disclosure: https://www.globalelr.com/2018/02/china-mandates-esg-disclosures-for-listed-companies-and-bond-issuers/

In 2018, the Asset Management Association of China issued the Green Investment Guidelines: https://greenfinanceplatform.org/financial-measures-database/chinas-green-investment-guidelines

International ESG standards mentioned:

Aluminum Stewardship Initiative (ASI): https://aluminium-stewardship.org/

Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS): https://a4ws.org/

The Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure (SuRe) standard: https://www.sure-standard.org/

GIB stands for Global Infrastructure Basel (https://gib-foundation.org/), which manages the SuRe standard.

(Disclosure: In his day-job with GIZ, Anders Hove has worked with SGS China in completing the first SuRe project certification, under the Sustainable Infrastructure Alliance.)

You have probably heard China's carbon market described as the largest carbon market in the world. That's only proper, since China is the largest carbon emitting country and the carbon market will cover the coal power sector, which accounts for around half of the country's emissions. 

2020 was originally billed as a major year for climate policy, both globally and in China. Where does China's carbon market policy stand and how is it likely to evolve during the 14th Five-Year Plan period? What announcements should we expect this year?

Our first guest is Stian Reklev, co-founder and reporter with Carbon Pulse, which provides news and intelligence on global carbon markets. He is based in Beijing, where he has covered emissions trading markets and climate policy across the Asia-Pacific region since 2009, first for Point Carbon and then for Reuters, before setting up Carbon Pulse in 2015.

Our second guest is Yan Qin of Refinitiv, who is based in Oslo. Yan Qin is a power and carbon analyst with extensive experience in energy market analysis and quantitative modelling. Her work focus on the short-term outlook for power and carbon trading, supply-demand forecasting, and energy policy insights, mainly for clients at utilities and energy companies. She was power market consultant before joining the Point Carbon team in 2011. Yan holds a Masters in Economics from the University of Oslo.

For further reading:

IEA report on China's carbon ETS: https://www.iea.org/reports/chinas-emissions-trading-scheme

Carbon Pulse: https://carbon-pulse.com/category/china-national-ets/

Refinitiv's annual global carbon market report and survey: https://www.refinitiv.com/en/resources/special-report/global-carbon-market-report#form

It's been a busy year for energy policy in China, and we're only in the beginning of July. This summer and fall are crucial periods in the design of the 14th Five-Year Plan, and many listeners are already aware that there are big issues at stake for climate and the environment. In today's podcast, we're releasing the audio of a Beijing Energy Network webinar held in mid-June. Recent Environment China podcast host Anders Hove and China Dialogue's Wu Yixiu delivered a joint presentation covering a lot of important details of this process. Topics touched on include:

• Recent renewable energy trends in China.
• Why China is seeing a wave of new coal plant approvals.
• Whether wind and solar are likely to grow in 2020, and how much.
• Whether China will enhance its climate ambition or adopt a carbon cap.
• What the new energy law and clean energy consumption mechanism drafts are all about.

Some reading:

The 14th Five-Year Plan: What Ideas are on the Table?

https://chinadialogue.net/climate/11434-the-14th-five-year-plan-what-ideas-are-on-the-table/

Current Direction for Renewable Energy in China: 

https://www.oxfordenergy.org/publications/current-direction-for-renewable-energy-in-china/

In this week's podcast, we sit down with Chloe Dempsey to talk about meat, alternative protein, and the environment in China. Chloe is a research fellow at the Cellular Agriculture Society and Yenching scholar at Peking University, where she is completing a Master’s of Economics. Chloe’s thesis focuses on the market for cultured meat in China, with a focus on consumers. Chloe also has an interest in alternative protein, sustainable food solutions and agriculture across Asia, Oceania and Latin America. Chloe comes from both Australia and Ireland, both countries whose key exports to China are agricultural and food related. Chloe has previously lived in Brazil and has supplementary qualifications in philanthropy and social impact design. Chloe’s undergraduate studies were in Law and International relations, and over the last four years she has studied, worked and volunteered across Greater China and the Asia Pacific in commercial law and for environmental and social causes. 

Since 2016, Chloe has been predominantly resident in Beijing and in her spare time enjoys long distance running and tracking down Beijing’s best jianbing.  

Asia is the world's top region for infrastructure investment, and these investments need to be sustainable in order to meet the Paris Climate Agreement goals and the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). A fair number of standards now exist to help investors assess the sustainability of infrastructure, and one of those specific to the debt market is green bonds. 

In today's episode, we sit down with Xie Wenhong, China Program Manager at the Climate Bonds Initiative. Wenhong has experience working on development and energy in Southeast Asia, and previously worked under Dr. Ma Jun at the Center for Finance and Development of Tsinghua University. He holds an MA in International Policy Studies from Stanford University.

Show notes:

Greening China's Bond Market, by Sean Kidney:

https://www.iisd.org/sites/default/files/publications/greening-chinas-financial-system-chapter-10.pdf

Introduction to China's green bond market in China Dialogue (2018): https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/10387-International-investors-eye-China-s-green-bonds

Energy security was already a hot issue in China well before the global oil price collapse and Covid crisis. Now, as the country listens to the government list its coming priorities during the long-delayed Two Sessions of the National People's Congress, energy security is topic Number One.

In this episode, we sit down with Dr Michal Meidan, Director of the China Energy Programme at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (OIES), to talk about China, energy security, and oil and gas markets. Before joining OIES in July 2019, she headed cross-commodity China research at Energy Aspects. Prior to that, she headed China Matters, an independent research consultancy providing analysis on the politics of energy in China. She is the author of numerous academic papers, articles, and books related to China, energy, and political economy.

Dr Meidan is also a past speaker at the Beijing Energy Network and has memories of BEN going back over a decade.

Show notes:

China Key Themes for Energy in 2020 (written in January): https://www.oxfordenergy.org/wpcms/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/China-Key-Themes-for-2020.pdf

Geopolitical Shifts and China’s Energy Priorities, March 2020: https://www.oxfordenergy.org/wpcms/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Geopolitical-shifts-and-Chinas-energy-policy-priorities.pdf

Dr Meidan’s Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/michalmei

Oxford Institute for Energy Studies podcast: China’s Rocky Road to Recovery: https://www.oxfordenergy.org/publications/chinas-rocky-road-to-recovery-2/

This is the second part of a two-part episode featuring Lauri Myllyvirta, an air pollution and climate expert from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

Lauri has over 10 years of experience as an air pollution and climate expert. He has led numerous research projects on air pollution, assessing air quality and health impacts of energy policies, including more than a dozen modeling studies of the air quality and health impacts of coal-fired power plants. Lauri has also contributed to numerous publications around energy solutions and air pollution. He served as a member of the Technical Working Group on regulating emissions from large combustion plants in the EU. He lived in Beijing for many years and was previously a senior member of the Greenpeace East Asia team based in Beijing.

In this segment, Lauri and Environment China host Anders Hove discuss some of the issues and questions raised by Lauri's presentation and his other research.

This is the first part of a two-part episode featuring Lauri Myllyvirta, an air pollution and climate expert from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

Lauri has over 10 years of experience as an air pollution and climate expert. He has led numerous research projects on air pollution, assessing air quality and health impacts of energy policies, including more than a dozen modeling studies of the air quality and health impacts of coal-fired power plants. Lauri has also contributed to numerous publications around energy solutions and air pollution. He served as a member of the Technical Working Group on regulating emissions from large combustion plants in the EU. He lived in Beijing for many years and was previously a senior member of the Greenpeace East Asia team based in Beijing.

In this segment, Lauri has recorded a video of a presentation he made recently on the impact of Covid-19 on air pollution worldwide as well as the potential for a green stimulus to make this economic recovery focus on more high quality growth. In the second part, we engage in a short Q&A. If you want to view the presentation and video, Lauri is planning to upload the presentation to YouTube, and we’ll have that link in the show notes when it’s up.

You can find more content from CREA on their website at: https://energyandcleanair.org/. 

China, like other major countries, is actively working on measures to stimulate the economy and recover from the coronavirus. The question is, how can China make its stimulus measures as green and beneficial for the economy as possible?

In this episode, we cover what types of stimulus have been done in the past, what the principles should be for green stimulus, and what ideas each of us have for how green stimulus could be done this time in China. Finally, we talk about whether it’s likely to actually happen.

Guests are:

Dimitri DeBoer, who started and leads the china office of Client Earth, a European NGO focused on environmental law, which works with the Ministry of Ecology and Environment as well as the Supreme People’s Court helping with training of environmental judges. Dimitri is also special advisor to the CCICED, the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development.

Wu Yixiu, who leads the Climate communications team with China Dialogue. She has been following and writing about China’s low carbon transition pathway, annual emissions, and other climate related topics for several years. Recently, Yixiu and frequent Environment China co-host Yao Zhe published a piece in China Dialogue, "Stimulating the economy sustainably after coronavirus," at https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/11896-Stimulating-the-economy-sustainably-after-coronavirus. 

Other items referenced in the episode include:

Statement of European leaders on green stimulus: https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/eu-leaders-back-green-transition-in-pandemic-recovery-plan/

Various ideas from the U.S. on green stimulus:  https://medium.com/@green_stimulus_now/a-green-stimulus-to-rebuild-our-economy-1e7030a1d9ee

In this special mini-episode of Environment China, we again talk to Li Shuo of Greenpeace, following up on his earlier interview on the Biodiversity COP, as well as discussing how the recent crisis in China could affect the country's policies and efforts on the broader topics of biodiversity, wildlife protection, and climate change.

Li Shuo references a column by recent podcast guest Lauri Myllyvirta, of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, available here: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-coronavirus-has-temporarily-reduced-chinas-co2-emissions-by-a-quarter

Here is another article illustrating graphically how the reduction in industrial activity has influenced emissions, as observed by satellites. The question is, will additional stimulus lead emissions to rebound even more strongly? 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-01/air-pollution-vanishes-across-china-s-industrial-heartland