Environment China

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.

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Episode Executive Producer: Anders Hove

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].

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.

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/

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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