Foundations for a Low-Carbon Energy System in China

Description

Climate change is a key problem of the 21st century. China, as the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, has committed to stabilize its current emissions and dramatically increase the share of electricity production from non-fossil fuels by 2030. However, this is only a first step: in the longer term, China needs to aggressively strive to reach a goal of zero-emissions. Through detailed discussions of electricity pricing, electric vehicle policies, nuclear energy policies, and renewable energy policies, this book reviews how near-term climate and energy policies can affect long-term decarbonization pathways beyond 2030, building the foundations for decarbonization in advance of its realization. Focusing primarily on the electricity sector in China - the main battleground for decarbonization over the next century - it provides a valuable resource for researchers and policymakers, as well as energy and climate experts.

Daniel P. Schrag is the Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology and Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering at Harvard University. He is Director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment. He also co-directs the Program on Science, Technology and Public Policy at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. His research interests include climate change, energy technology, energy policy, and digital technology policy. From 2009 to 2017, he served on President Obama's Council of Advisors for Science and Technology, contributing on reports to the President on a variety of topics, including energy technology and national energy policy, agricultural preparedness, and climate change. Henry Lee is the founding director of the Environment and Natural Resources Program in the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. He is also a Senior Lecturer in Public Policy at the Kennedy School. For the past three decades, he has written and taught about climate policy, electric vehicles, power markets, and China's energy and environmental policies. Before joining the Kennedy School, Lee spent nine years in Massachusetts state government as director of the state's Energy Office and special assistant to the governor for environmental policy. Lee's recent research interests focus on energy and transportation, China's energy policy, and public infrastructure projects in developing nations. Matthew Bunn is the faculty lead of Harvard University's Managing the Atom research project. He is the author or co-author of over 25 books or major technical reports and over 150 articles in publications ranging from Science to The Washington Post. His most recent co-edited book is Preventing Black Market Trade in Nuclear Weapons Technology (Cambridge, 2018). Wang Pu is an Associate Professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. His research involves climate and energy policies and sustainable development strategies, particularly the comprehensive environmental impacts of China's energy transition on air, water, and land use. Wei Peng is an Assistant Professor at the Penn State University, with a joint appointment between the School of International Affairs and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. She is also an Associate Director of the Initiative for Sustainable Energy Policy in the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Michael Davidson is Assistant Professor in the School of Global Policy and Strategy and the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. His research focuses on engineering implications and institutional conflicts of deploying low-carbon energy in China, India, and the US. Mao Zhimin is a specialist at the World Bank focusing on the Western Balkan region's resources management and climate adaptation challenges. Previously, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs's Environment and Natural Resources Program, with a focus on China's low carbon development.

'... a relatively slim and highly readable volume that can be appreciated by policy analysts in think tanks and corporations, as well as by academics and graduate students seeking a current overview of the low-carbon transition in China.' Philip Andrews-Speed, China Quarterly