This event will discuss China’s environmental policy.
In September 2020, President Xi Jinping announced that China would strive to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. While further details on the implementation of such a target remain to be released along with the country’s 14th Five-Year Plan, this announcement brings us that much closer to achieving the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius.
This new policy is embedded in China’s new sustainable development strategy and exemplify the communist party’s newly adopted political philosophy of the “ecological civilisation”. From the advancement of nuclear and renewable energies power generation capacity to the development of an advanced environmental legislation to the promotion of electric vehicles to the expansion of protected areas and afforestation, China’s leadership has demonstrated an increasing concern for environmental protection, climate adaptation and mitigation since the early 2010s. However, the ideological positioning and environmental competence of state officials, which allowed for such a quick rollout of laws and planes, hides an array of social and political implications in China and abroad. China’s state-led environmentalism has often taken the shape of a top down, exclusive and sometimes depriving endeavour for populations in less developed regions of the country. Moreover, this environmental awareness does not seem to transcend national boundaries. China continues to invest in coal power plants in Africa and South East Asia. Essential infrastructure for the realisation of its Belt and Road Initiative is expected to threaten biodiversity and small communities in partnering countries.
So how did China go from the Copenhagen summit’s villain to a potential leader in climate action? What are the challenges the country will face in transitioning from an energy intensive and industrial economy to a clean and sustainable future? What are the socio-political impacts of China’s state-led environmentalism? Is China’s declared ecological civilisation a discursive pretence or a paradigm shift? Will this domestic transformation lead to the displacement of environmental harm to less developed countries?
To discuss these questions, we will welcome two experts on the topic, Professor Judith Shapiro and Ma Jun.
Professor Judith Shapiro is the director of the Masters in Natural Resources and Sustainable Development for the School of International Service at American University. Her research and teaching focus on global environmental politics and policy, the environmental politics of Asia, and Chinese politics under Mao. She is the author, co-author or editor of nine books, including China Goes Green: Coercive Environmentalism for a Troubled Planet (Polity 2020), China’s Environmental Challenges (Polity 2016), and Mao’s War against Nature (Cambridge University Press 2001).
Ma Jun is the director of the Beijing-based NGO, the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE), and a well-known and respected leader in China’s environmental community. In his seminal book entitled China’s Water Crisis, Ma drew global attention to the significant deterioration of the country’s water resources. In 2006 and 2007, he launched the unique China air and water pollution online databases, for the first time providing public access to key pollution data. Prior this, Ma Jun was an investigative journalist with the South China Morning Post.
This event will be live-streamed to our YouTube channel here:
www.youtube.com/channel/UCOoksFYBCHqZWwVBU9qewZg
We will post the exact link when the event starts at 3pm.
You can find more about our speakers at the following links:
edspace.american.edu/judithshapiro/?page_id=53
