Monthly Archives: July 2009
Environmental Transparency in China: the First Annual Pollution Information Transparency Index (PITI) and Implications for Climate Change
The First Annual Pollution Information Transparency Index In partnership with the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE), we launched a Pollution Information Transparency Index (PITI) last month on June 3rd. This is China’s first index to evaluate environmental information transparency in 113 cities around China. We are now providing for the first time an English translation of our initial PITI findings. One of the central findings of our research concerns what we termed China’s “All-Star Team.” The point here is that if we look at the top performers in each category of transparency we evaluated, we find some Chinese … Continue reading 阅读全文 Add comment 发表评论(1)
Go with wind: China to dramatically boost its wind power capacity, again
China keeps revising its renewable energy target for 2020–so frequently and dramatically that just when you feel you finally managed to track all the target numbers and to put them on paper, the numbers become history. China first announced its 2020 target for renewable energy in 2007, and then revised the numbers in May 2009. With the stimulus package injected into renewable energy investment, China is now reported to be revising the 2020 target plan again, which is even more ambitious (as shown below). It should be noted that China interchangeably uses the terms “alternative energy” and “renewable energy”; its portfolio includes large amounts of hydropower and nuclear power.
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Recent Environmental Law and Public Participation News
One year later, Shenyang’s open information system due for further upgrades (Google translation)
Officials of Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning Province, recently revealed plans to institute additional upgrades to the city’s open information system. Currently, the city’s information portals offer over half a million documents from 1981 to present day for public access, along with public notification systems and community forums. Continue reading 阅读全文 Add comment 发表评论(0)
NRDC and Partners Establish New Environmental Law Training Base for Judges, Lawyers and Environmental Regulators in Central China
This year, the attention on China’s environment has shifted largely to focus on how China is dealing with climate change. We cannot overstate just how important this has been. Just a few years ago, climate change was not a significant part of the public debate on environmental issues in China. Now we see discussion of climate every single day in Chinese media and China’s government has made a series of aggressive moves to position the country to develop a lower-carbon economy.
In the run-up to Copenhagen and beyond, one issue that other countries will raise with China is whether its climate and environment policies, no matter how good, are implementable on the ground. Continue reading 阅读全文 Add comment 发表评论(2)
Beijing’s Traffic Renewal
A recent social survey carried out by the China Youth Daily focused on the issue of urban traffic, noting that 79.8% of respondents in a nationwide 15,217-person survey had to deal with traffic congestion during their work commutes.
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Secretary Chu speaks at Tsinghua: long on technological solutions, short on policy
Josh Bushinsky, who is with us at NRDC Beijing for a few months from the University of Chicago Law School, attended the talk by Secretary Chu at Tsinghua last week. We post his summary of the meeting here. His conclusion is that there was ample discussion about technological approaches, but insufficient focus on the policy steps both countries need to take to get us on the right track on climate. Continue reading 阅读全文 Add comment 发表评论(0)
Recent Environmental Law and Public Participation News
After three weeks on vacation in the United States, it’s good to be back and eat some baozi.
Among the environmental news in the past few days, two events have grabbed headlines in China. First, rumors that a local irradiation plant in Henan Province had suffered explosions and was leaking radioactive material led to a mass panic and evacuation of several hundred thousand Chinese residents. Local authorities quickly moved to round up citizens accused of spreading the false information, but editorial pages of Chinese press have examined the incident from then angle of open government information. Continue reading 阅读全文 Add comment 发表评论(0)
NYT – Drawing Fire, China Seeks to Dominate in Renewable Energy
Stephen Chu and Gary Locke are in Beijing. US-China collaboration on green tech is on the agenda, as with nearly all of the high-level US delegations that have descended on Beijing in recent months. Continue reading 阅读全文 Add comment 发表评论(1)
A River Runs Cleaner: More from Xiangfan
As we mentioned last week, we saw a positive story of improved water quality in Xiangfan. This story is worth examining more closely. How much do actual monitoring results bear out the apparent improvements in water quality? Continue reading 阅读全文 Add comment 发表评论(1)
A Note from the Province of the Nine-Headed Bird
With our intrepid blogmaster Michael Zhang still on vacation, we are reminded of just how much work it is to maintain a daily, bilingual blog. And various work matters have overtaken our lives in recent weeks, so apologies for our general absence from these pages this past month. That said, we expect to be back in the blogging saddle shortly.
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