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What to make of China’s efforts to meet its energy intensity targets

Adam Moser at Vermont Law School’s China Environmental Governance blog drew a contrast between a blog post of mine discussing China’s efforts to meet its energy targets, and a post by Michael Levi at the Council on Foreign Relations positing the view that China’s energy statistics “have become pretty meaningless.” Mr. Moser frames our posts as being on opposite sides of the argument (“circus or savior”), but it is perhaps more accurate to say that we are looking at different aspects of the same picture.
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Posted in climate change, Environmental Governance, Feature Article | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Central Government Has Invested Over 200 Billion in Energy Conservation and Other Recent China Environmental Law, Public Participation, and Climate News

Central Government Has Invested Over 200 Billion RMB in Energy Consumption and Environmental Protection During 11th FYP Period (Google Translate)

Earlier this week Xie Zhenhua, Vice Minister of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), stated that the central government has invested over 200 billion RMB on energy efficiency and environmental protection during the 11th five-year plan period. This amount accounts for only 10%-15% of total investment in this area across the nation. (Source: CHINANEWS)
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China: Racing Toward the Finish Line on its Energy and Environmental Targets

I am in Tianjin this week for the climate talks, and the mood, compared to Copenhagen, has been subdued. In contrast, all around China government officials and factory owners are working themselves into a frenzy to meet their share of China’s 20 percent energy intensity reduction target. The headlines have been stunning. Across the country, a massive effort has been mobilized to eliminate backwards production capacity, control growth in energy intensive industries (like steel and cement), and a variety of other efforts. In August, China released a list of over 2,000 factories with outdated equipment that had to be shut … Continue reading 阅读全文 » Add comment 发表评论(0)

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Measuring Temperature: LEED grows hotter in China


Nine years ago, I participated in a series of workshops organized by NRDC and Carnegie Mellon on designing China’s first green building (now called the Agenda 21 building). Continue reading 阅读全文 » Add comment 发表评论(0)

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“The Lights are Back On” – Open Information News from the US

The following news might be of interest to those in China following developments in open information. The Obama administration reversed a restrictive Bush-era reading of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA; a US law on government information disclosure) in late January and ordered the US Attorney General to issue new guidelines regarding government implementation of FOIA.  The Attorney General’s guidelines were released last week and can be found here: (foia-memo-march2009).  This is a great example of how the same law can be interpreted in completely different ways by different leadership. According to the Attorney General’s new memorandum: The Freedom of … Continue reading 阅读全文 » Add comment 发表评论(0)

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