Development, Economics, and Energy

The United States and China are the world’s two largest economies. They are also the two largest producers and consumers of coal and the largest emitters of carbon dioxide. In recent years, however, their paths on coal have started to diverge.

Over the last few years, coal consumption has dropped dramatically in the United States, mainly due to low natural gas prices. In response to weak domestic demand, the U.S. coal industry has been rushing to find its way out to the international market. Last year, U.S.

China’s State Council in late January approved an “energy consumption control target” to keep the country’s total energy consumption below the equivalent of 4 billion tonnes of coal per year by 2015.

The recent spate of severe air pollution in China has shone a spotlight on the need for strong environmental regulation in China and prompted the government to move forward with a number of new environmental policies and laws – some of which have been languishing in the proposal stage for years. 

This post originally appeared on ChinaDaily.com.

Over the past two decades, the world has witnessed a remarkable period of economic and human development: More than 2 billion people have gained access to improved drinking water; life expectancy has increased by approximately five years; more children are going to s

Leading China experts and top media representatives participated in a ChinaFAQs press call today on how the country will address pressing environmental, climate and energy challenges at home and globally in the coming years. At the National People’s Congress beginning March 5, Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang are expected to formally become China’s president and premier, respectively. Other top spots in China’s ministries will also be assigned, with implications for China’s future of low-carbon development and for the U.S. The briefing was one of ChinaFAQs’ events highlighting the reasons for China’s action on low-carbon energy, including: energy security, economic competitiveness through technological innovation, and climate and environmental impacts.

As China continues its leadership transition next week at the National People’s Congress, many are wondering how the country will confront its pressing environmental, climate, and energy challenges. On Friday, March 1 at 9 a.m. EST, WRI’s ChinaFAQs network will bring together leading experts for a press teleconference to discuss these issues.

As the biggest coal-consuming and coal-producing nation in the world, China is perhaps an unlikely place to find a burgeoning wind power industry. Yet today China is the biggest wind power market in the world and builds almost all its wind turbines at home. China’s wind power capacity has increased over a hundredfold in the past decade (from 344 MW in 2000 to 44,733 MW in 2010) and estimates for 2012 put installed wind capacity at about 80 GW (see Figure 1). Just a decade ago the country had only a handful of wind turbines in operation—all imported from Europe and the United States.

News over the past five days in many parts of northern China have centered around the unprecedented air pollution shrouding several northern cities, including the capital. The “Airpocalypse,” so dubbed by micro-bloggers, has elicited a strong, unambiguous response frot the public and the media – causing many to call a spade a spade by casting away euphemisms like fog in favor of more candid descriptors like smog and pollution. It has also inspired this poignant music video lamenting the lost of Beijing to the evil forces of pollution.

On Dec 6, 2012, the Ministry of Land and Resources of the People’s Republic of China (MLR) published a list of winners of the second auction for shale gas exploration rights. For each block auctioned three potential winners were given, listed in order of priority for exploration rights for that block.

Although major greenhouse-gas emitting countries were criticized at the latest round of climate negotiations in Doha for failing to show enough ambition, an event held during the second week highlighted leadership from Germany, China, Morocco, and South Africa on clean and renewable energy. Hosted by Peter Altmaier, Federal Environment Minister of Germany, and moderated by the President of the World Resources Institute, Andrew Steer, the panel also included Xie Zhenhua, Vice-Chair of China’s NDRC, Nandi Mayathula Khoza, Minister of Agriculture of South Africa’s Gauteng province, and Fouad Douiri, Morocco’s Energy and Environment Minister.