Tracking the emerging technological, commercial, political and social revolution that is greening China’s red-hot economy.
Posted in climate change, innovation, policy on Oct 31st, 2008
China releases comprehensive white paper on its climate change policy ahead of key international meetings.
Ahead of the high level technology transfer summit in Beijing next week; next December’s 14th Conference of Parties under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Poznan, Poland, during which a general framework for a successor treaty to [...]
Posted in coal, government, policy on Oct 28th, 2008
External costs (i.e. cost not accounted for in the price tag, such as environmental, public health and other social costs) of coal in China totaled RMB 1.7 trillion (about US$250 billion) in 2007, equivalent to 7.1% of China’s 2007 GDP, according to a landmark report commissioned by Greenpeace, Energy Foundation and World Wildlife Fund released [...]
Posted in automotive, biofuels, climate change, coal, energy efficiency, green hops, policy, solar, supply chain, transportation, wind on Oct 25th, 2008
Climate Social Responsibility. At its firs global supply-chain summit in Beijing, Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, launched an ambitious program dubbed the “Global Sourcing Responsibility Initiative” that will require its Chinese suppliers (which may number up to 20,000 according to China Daily) to abide to potentially costly energy efficiency targets, to be verified by third [...]
Posted in energy efficiency, green buildings, solar, water on Oct 22nd, 2008
This is the 50th post for The Green Leap Forward! To celebrate, we visited the 2008 China (Beijing) International Energy Saving and Environmental Protection Exhibition held at the Beijing Exhibition Center this past weekend (Oct 17 through 20).
The first thing that strikes the visitor is the Cathedral-like grandeur of the Beijing Exhibition Center. [...]
Posted in CDM, capital and finance, climate change, government on Oct 20th, 2008
The China Carbon Forum 2008 was held at the Renaissance Capital Hotel in Beijing on October 15 and 16. The Green Leap Forward was on site to measure the pulse of China’s carbon markets, but did not leave terribly optimistic. In truth, the speakers at the forum did a good job of highlighting a lot [...]
Posted in coal, policy, transportation, uncategorized on Oct 15th, 2008
Last week, we discussed the startling study by an MIT group on the Chinese coal industry. We dig a little deeper into the global coal industry (and of course tie it back to the Middle Kingdom), with a presentation by Stanford University’s David Victor at Google’s campus.
In case you don’t have that hour or so [...]
Posted in automotive, governance, green hops, nuclear, policy, recylcling, rural development, solar, transportation, water on Oct 12th, 2008
Nuclear is Hot. Big 5 power company China Huaneng Group has signed contracts with suppliers to equip its first nuclear power plant in Shandong province. The plant, planned for 200 MW in its first phase with a 2013 start date, will boast “high temperature, gas-cooled technology” (HTR-PM), which is supposed to be safer and simpler [...]
Posted in coal, policy, supply chain on Oct 9th, 2008
Coal-fired power plants account for some 70 to 80% of China’s total power generation. A group of MIT researchers have released a preliminary report on a comprehensive survey of China’s coal power plant industry entitled “Greener Plants, Grayer Skies: A Report from the Front Lines of China’s Energy Sector” (press release here; full report here), [...]
Posted in capital and finance, climate change on Oct 7th, 2008
This is an environmental “Tale of Two Cities.” Two weeks ago, The Green Leap Forward (GLF) attended two separate events introducing two separate emissions rights exchanges in two separate cities. The first was an event hosted by the China Carbon Forum on Sept 23 in the capital, featuring as its main event a presentation introducing [...]
Posted in automotive, biofuels, climate change, coal, energy efficiency, government, green buildings, green hops, solar, transportation, uncategorized, urban planning on Oct 4th, 2008
BYD Auto/ Warren Buffet Update. Seems like the investment of Warren Buffet’s MidAmerican Energy Holdings in Shezhen-based BYD Auto is not just a bet on electric vehicles, but also on the collaboration between MidAmerican and BYD to develop “rapid charge batteries” for electrical grid systems to serve as energy storage for renewable but intermittent power [...]
