
Environment China
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Top 10 Environment China Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Environment China episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Environment China for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Environment China episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

Air Quality Innovations: Finding Data in the Smog
Environment China
02/01/18 • 23 min
Beijing's smoggy air has sparked a wave of creativity, giving rise to a range of products that aim to protect the public and their health. One innovative start-up, Kaiterra (formerly known as Origins), creates portable, high-accuracy monitors that measure and map the world’s air. Kaiterra's "laser eggs" have shed light on pollution data that was previously hard to come by for consumers in China and worldwide.
We sit down with Liam Bates, co-founder and CEO of Kaiterra, to hear about how Kaiterra got its start, learn how laser eggs actually work, and explore the potential for a small start-up to help solve global air pollution challenges. Sneak preview: Turns out that being a Chinese TV-star DOES prepare one to become CEO of a tech company!
Check out more about Kaiterra on their website: www.kaiterra.com.

Oh Dam! Pumping Sustainability into Chinese Hydropower Investments
Environment China
12/21/17 • 25 min
China has a lot of dams – about 87,000 of them — and has almost one half of the world’s large dams, including the largest, the Three Gorges Dam. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that China’s hydro companies were among the first wave of Chinese companies to zou chu qu -- to "go out” from China in the early 2000s. But while hydroelectric plants represent a source of non-fossil energy, they are also often associated with ecological and social disruption.
In this episode, we chat with Stephanie Jensen-Cormier, China Program Director at International Rivers, about the progress being made by Chinese hydropower companies to minimize environmental impacts domestically and abroad. She has almost ten years of experience working on and researching environmental and China-related issues and is also a long-time member of the Beijing Energy Network. You can read more about Stephanie’s reflections on Chinese overseas hydropower investment in a recent blog post she authored here.
And exciting news — Stephanie’s team is hiring for consultant and intern positions! Please visit the International Rivers website to access the JDs and contact Stephanie if you’re interested in joining the International Rivers team.

Every Bite Counts!资深食品安全工作者如何看待中国农业与食物的未来
Environment China
12/14/17 • 29 min
近些年来食品安全问题常常见诸报端。人们在思考其背后的原因的同时,也在试图寻找解决方案。今天参与我们对话的嘉宾是绿色和平东亚办公室食品与农业项目组的王婧。过去几年来,王婧和她同事们活跃在环保与生态农业圈,从事食品安全问题研究,倡导现代生态农业在中国的发展。本期节目中,她从政府、企业、农业生产者和普通消费者的不同角度分析了如何推动食品安全体系的建立,同时结合自身的经历介绍了生态农业在中国的发展现状和面临的问题。王婧亦是一名资深生态美食达人,是“吃货拯救世界”微信公众号的主要撰稿人,通过微信平台定期向大家推荐生态食材,推广生态农业和环境保护的理念。搜索chihuozhengjiushijie即可关注。
We are delighted to have Wang Jing from Greenpeace East Asia to share her work experience in the field of food and agriculture in this episode. We have learned the reasons behind food safety incidents and discussed the role of central and local government, business, farmers and consumers can play in addressing the issue. Jing has also shared some of her most exciting and interesting stories on organic farming. She also runs a WeChat public account (吃货拯救世界) on great organic food. Please search chihuozhengjiushijie to follow her.

China’s power shortages and solutions - with Xi Xi of iGDP
Environment China
09/24/22 • 23 min
Today, we’re going back to the hot topic of the past two years, namely the energy transition away from coal and how it relates to energy security concerns, especially the recent power outages that have affected parts of the country.
Our guest is Xi Xi, an analyst at the innovative Green Development Program, or iGDP, based in Beijing. At iGDP she works on energy modeling with the Energy Policy Simulator (EPS), an energy systems model that informs policy makers on decarbonization pathways. She also assists in low carbon development strategy for provincial governments, while also researching energy and electricity investment in Belt and Road Initiative Countries. Previously, Xi Xi was a consultant for the U.S. EPA at Abt Associates, and she also served as an investment analyst at the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, where she looked at cleantech startups for investment and grant opportunities. In addition, Xi Xi is executive director of the BJ Energy Network!

Phasing Out Coal Power in China
Environment China
04/30/22 • 28 min
Today, we’re looking at the issue of phasing out coal power in China, looking at a report issued recently by scholars at the University of Maryland Center for Global Sustainability and the California-China Climate Initiative at UC Berkeley.
Our guest is Dr. Ryna Cui, who is an expert in global coal transition and climate and energy policies in China. Her research focuses on climate change mitigation, and sustainable energy transition, and she is experienced in global and national integrated assessment modeling of China, India and the United States. She is a contributing author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report on the topic of global coal transition. And notably, she joined us on Podcast 84 in November 2019!
The report we're discussing today is: "A Decade of Action: A Strategic Approach to Coal Phase-Down for China."
It discusses a strategic plan to retire China's old or outdated capacity even as the country builds new coal plants. This is in line with government strategies, which posit that new coal should help meet peak loads and ensure stable electricity supplies even as clean energy should supply most incremental energy or electricity overall.
The report has three recommendations: 1. Conduct a plant-level review to identify an early retirement schedule and strategy. 2. Combine this strategy with an analysis of renewable energy, grid, storage and transmission investment to fund these investments and to replace any lost tax revenues. 3. Evaluate the job losses and their composition at the county level, and provide support for job training.
Questions we cover:
- How does this study build on the work we discussed two years ago, with the five criteria for prioritizing retirements?
- How do carbon prices and water come into the calculation?
- How do you quantify/assess the benefits of the retirements, especially those related to human health?
- How are the retirements distributed across provinces?
- Are flexibility retrofits really necessary and economical?
- Are you assuming that provinces will do a lot more trading of electricity?
- How do you think the present push for energy security will affect coal plant retirements?
- What types of jobs are lost when coal plants retire? What types of jobs would they qualify for retraining on? Or do they mostly end up taking buy-outs and just moving to completely different industries?
- Do coal industry workers generally move in search of new work?
- What’s new in the latest IPCC chapter you co-authored on energy systems?
For further reading:
Ryna Cui et al., “A Decade of Action: A Strategic Approach to Coal Phase-Down for China,” Center for Global Sustainability, 2022, at https://cgs.umd.edu/research-impact/publications/decade-act-policy-opportunities-china-begin-coal-phase-down-while.
Jiang Lin et al., “Large balancing areas and dispersed renewable investment enhance grid flexibility in a renewable-dominant power system in China,” Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, February 2022, DOI:10.1016/j.isci.2022.103749, at https://eta-publications.lbl.gov/publications/large-balancing-areas-and-dispersed.
IPCC AR6 Chapter 6 (Energy Systems): https://report.ipcc.ch/ar6wg3/pdf/IPCC_AR6_WGIII_FinalDraft_Chapter06.pdf.

Do China's EVs really reduce emissions and improve air quality? - with Zhang Shaojun
Environment China
08/28/23 • 25 min
Today's episode looks at the topic of electric vehicles and their impact on both carbon emissions and urban air quality. China has the world’s largest market for electric vehicles, and it is the largest maker of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles manufactured worldwide. Hence, the environmental impact of EVs, even outside of China, often goes back upstream to China.
Our guest is Zhang Shaojun, Associate Professor at the Tsinghua University School of the Environment. His research examines the environmental impacts of emissions from road transportation systems on air quality, climate and public health. Before joining Tsinghua University, he was a Postdoctoral Associate at University of Michigan and Atkinson Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Cornell University.
Shaojun and his colleagues have published two important papers on these topics this year. The first, in the journal PNAS Nexus, looks at the upstream greenhouse gas emissions from battery manufacturing as well as a regional breakdown of power sector emissions from EV charging. The second paper, in Environmental Pollution, looks at the impact of EVs on air quality, employing Tsinghua's CMAQ model to look at how EVs affect ozone and PM2.5, in particular considering the seasonal effects on air chemistry, which relates to the formation of secondary pollution. (Primary emissions refer to pollutants directly emitted from vehicles or power plants, whereas secondary pollutants are formed in the atmosphere through mixing of chemical precursors.)
For further reading:
Fang Wang, Shaojun Zhang, Yinan Zhao, Yunxiao Ma, Yichen Zhang, Anders Hove, and Ye Wu, “Multisectoral drivers of decarbonizing battery electric vehicles in China,” PNAS Nexus, Volume 2, Issue 5, May 2023, https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/2/5/pgad123/7159885.
Yiliang Jiang, Xinyu Liang, Shaojun Zhang, Zechun Hu, Anders Hove, and Ye Wu, “The future air quality impact of electric vehicle promotion and coordinated charging in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region,” Environ Pollut., 1 September 2023, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2023.121928.
Support us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/EnvironmentChina
Episode Executive Producer: Anders Hove

Antarctic Ambitions: Environmental Education for China's Youth
Environment China
10/19/17 • 24 min
Most of China’s youth are being raised in urban jungles, with little chance to experience and understand the earth’s tremendous ecosystems. But one intrepid environmentalist from Shandong wanted to see Antarctica so badly she started a crowdfunding campaign to support her expedition — and has been finding ways to teach the next generation about everything from penguins to polar melting ever since.
In this episode, we sit down with Songqiao Yao, an environmental explorer and serial entrepreneur. Songqiao is the founder of WildBound, "a nature-inspired school situated in classroom earth and taught by teacher ecosystems.” Songqiao shares her own story of growing up yearning to explore the world’s environments, and how she is currently leveraging her background in environmental policy, geography and business strategy to instill that same drive for environmental protection in China’s youth. You can follow WildBound on WeChat @野声WildBound.
Note: WildBound is hiring for various positions! If you are interested and have relevant experience in environmental education, conservation, science, sustainable consulting and/or communication, get in touch! They are a growing team with presence all over the world, so you don’t even have to be based in China. Write to Songqiao or send your CV directly to [email protected].

解读“中国城市绿色低碳发展指数”,评价“十二五”城市低碳转型努力
Environment China
10/26/17 • 18 min
IPCC指出,全球49%的温室气体排放与城市有关,与此同时,我们正在经历大规模快速的城市化浪潮,预计2030年全球将有60%的人口生活在城市中,而2050年这个数字将增长至70%。这既是机遇又是挑战,城市化过程需要从传统模式向低碳模式转变,而城市的经济发展模式也需要经历转型的阵痛。可以说,城市转型的成败关乎全球2°C目标的实现与否。中国自2010年开始进行低碳试点工作,截至目前已确定了29个省区81个城市进行低碳试点。如何评价中国城市的低碳发展进程?独立智库绿色创新发展中心联合美国劳伦斯伯克利国家实验室,在能源基金会的支持下开展了一项名为“中国城市绿色低碳发展指数”的研究,通过构建一套多维度综合指标体系,选择115个样本城市,收集数据,基于指标体系和城市分类对中国城市重点领域的绿色低碳发展行动和政策的实施效果进行量化分析,追踪和比较城市绿色低碳发展状态和程度。本次中国环境播客请到这项研究的主要负责人绿色创新发展中心的杨鹂博士为我们详细解读这项研究及其主要发现。 The guest of this episode is Dr. Yang Li, the Program Head of innovative Green Development Program (iGDP). Recently, iGDP, Energy Foundation (China), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) China Energy Group launched the China Low-carbon Green Index of City (China Logic) to track green low-carbon development in China’s cities to explore future development models. It is a multi-dimensional comprehensive index, which selects 115 cities as samples, collects data, quantifies green low-carbon development policy implementation and actions, and tracks and compares cities’ green low-carbon development. Yang Li shared the details of this research and key findings.

"Greener than Ever"? The BRI turns 10! - with Christoph Nedopil-Wang
Environment China
10/15/23 • 21 min
The Belt-and-Road Initiative (BRI) has reached the ripe old age of 10 this month. Those 10 years have seen a lot of change, including on topics like the relative focus on clean energy versus fossil fuels and the interest in and incentives for applying ESG criteria to BRI investments. Today we are joined by frequent guest and longtime friend of the pod, Professor Christoph Nedopil-Wang. This year he became the Director Griffith Asia Institute and is also Professor at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia. Previously, he was Associate Professor and Director of the Green Finance & Development Center, Fudan University. He previous worked in Beijing at the International Institute of Green Finance (IIGF), as well as at GIZ.
Cheat sheet:
- Q: Was the 1H 2023 really the greenest ever, as Reuters summarized? (A: Reuters focused on energy sector, where change most evident, though oil & gas investments are big and lumpy, so can't just look at 1H. "Small and beautiful" green investments becoming more common.)
- Q: Is energy becoming greener just because fossils falling, but renewables not picking up as much? (A: Both declining coal share and growing renewables, but renewables need much stronger growth.)
- Q: Why is state-owned sector declining and private sector going up? Is that due to SOEs focusing on domestic investment to respond to downturn? (A: Perhaps, but also because private firms now much stronger, and battery-related giants investing in big projects.)
- Q: What about mining for battery materials, is there more investment in value-creating parts of that supply chain in Africa, or is it all being processed elsewhere? (A: Yes, but need to be cautious on environmental impact of local processing and whether local firms or communities actually capture value.)
- Q: What is the situation with Chinese basic ESG principles (disclosure, community involvement) being applied on the BRI, as opposed to just meeting minimum local standards? (A: Not so good, for the power sector case studies they looked at.)
For further reading:
Christoph Nedopil Wang, ‘China Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Investment Report 2023 H1,’ Green Finance & Development Center, Fudan University, 1 August 2023, at https://greenfdc.org/china-belt-and-road-initiative-bri-investment-report-2023-h1/
Cecilia Springer et al., ‘Elevating ESG: Empirical lessons on environmental and social governance implementation of Chinese projects in Africa,’ Boston University, 30 August 2023, at https://www.bu.edu/gdp/2023/08/30/elevating-esg-empirical-lessons-on-environmental-social-and-governance-implementation-of-chinese-projects-in-africa/
Andrew Hayley, 'China's Belt and Road energy projects set for "greenest" year, research shows,' Reuters, 2 August 2023, at https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/chinas-belt-road-energy-projects-set-greenest-year-research-2023-08-02/

Corporate climate disclosure in China - with Erica Downs, Ned Downie, and Yushan Lou
Environment China
02/14/24 • 33 min
Today's episode looks at the complex topic of corporate climate disclosures. Our guests today are Erica Downs, Ned Downie, and Lou Yushan. They are the authors of a recent report, published by the Columbia Center on Global Energy Policy (CGEP), entitled “China’s Climate Disclosure Regime: How Regulations, Politics, and Investors Shape Corporate Climate Reporting.”
Erica Downs is senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University; Edmund Downie is PhD Candidate in Public Affairs at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs; and Yushan Lou is Research Associate at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.
In the podcast we discuss:
- How disclosures on ESG and carbon emissions differ in Hong Kong versus the mainland, and for listed versus unlisted firms
- The differing incentives SOEs have for making public climate disclosures
- The value of such disclosures for policy, given that policy-makers have so many other command-and-control instruments on climate policy and ways of obtaining emissions or climate-related information from the largest emitters
- The ways investors can and do influence Chinese firms, including SOEs, to improve climate disclosures
For further reading:
Edmund Downie, Erica Downs, Yushan Lou, “China’s Climate Disclosure Regime: How Regulations, Politics, and Investors Shape Corporate Climate Reporting," Columbia Center on Global Energy Policy, 29 November 2023, at https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/publications/chinas-climate-disclosure-regime-how-regulations-politics-and-investors-shape-corporate-climate-reporting/.
Edmund Downie, Erica Downs, Yushan Lou, "Better disclosure rules can help China’s financial markets work for the climate," China Dialogue, 4 January 2024, at https://chinadialogue.net/en/climate/better-disclosure-rules-can-help-chinas-financial-markets-work-for-the-climate/.
Episode produced by: Anders Hove
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FAQ
How many episodes does Environment China have?
Environment China currently has 154 episodes available.
What topics does Environment China cover?
The podcast is about Society & Culture, Interview, Climate, Environment, Natural Sciences, Energy, Podcasts, Water, Science and China.
What is the most popular episode on Environment China?
The episode title 'Global Energy Interconnection: The Dawn of the Global Power Grid?' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Environment China?
The average episode length on Environment China is 25 minutes.
How often are episodes of Environment China released?
Episodes of Environment China are typically released every 14 days.
When was the first episode of Environment China?
The first episode of Environment China was released on Jan 9, 2017.
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