President Joe Biden is likely to abandon a clean energy programme that was the centrepiece of his efforts to tackle greenhouse gas emissions at home, US media reported, because of opposition from a swing-vote Democratic senator from a state with a historically large coal industry. Funding to replace coal- and gas-fired plants with wind, solar and nuclear generation was part of a massive budget bill that Biden is struggling to get through Congress. The New York Times reported that White House staff members are now rewriting the legislation without the…
Day: October 16, 2021
China, coal and COP26: can the world’s biggest emitter give up its dirty habit?
When he was a little boy in the 1980s, Wang Xiaojun was taught to be proud of his home town of Lüliang in the north-western Chinese province of Shanxi. Shanxi is China’s biggest coal-producing region, and Lüliang was a significant base for the army during the second world war. Nestled in the mountains of the dusty Loess Plateau, Lüliang, a city of 3.4 million people, has had less to shout about in recent years. A series of corruption scandals in the city brought down several high profile officials shortly after…
Beijing’s Balancing Act on China-US Relations
Advertisement There has been a subtle, yet important reset in tone – albeit not in substantive stances, just yet – in China-U.S. relations. Much of the reset can be attributed to breakthroughs on fronts of trade negotiations, hostage diplomacy involving Meng Wanzhou and the two Michaels, and the United States’ ignominious evacuation from Afghanistan. Yet not an insignificant part of the shift, too, can be traced to Beijing’s active attempts at dialing down the temperature in the room, with moderate and reasonable success. Beijing’s Strategic De-escalation Upon arrival in the…
China’s Scripted Homicides Become a Popular Pastime
The murders are scripted. The money is real. In cities throughout China, young people are flocking to clubs to play a game that can be translated as “scripted homicide,” where they become different characters and spend hours solving fake murders. This macabre entertainment is expected to generate more than $2 billion in revenue this year, by one count. The growing popularity has sparked some concerns from Chinese government officials about their sometimes gothic or gory content. It has also led to a proliferation of clubs and competition for new and…
‘Ecological civilisation’: an empty slogan or will China act on the environment?
This week, China took charge of hosting a major UN environmental conference for the first time, at the opening of Cop15 in Kunming. The world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter and largest consumer of natural resources might seem a strange choice to host talks to stop the destruction of ecosystems and mass extinctions of wildlife, but the conference marks a tipping point in China’s development and an international debut for “ecological civilisation”, a little-known phrase outside its borders with big implications for the planet. Amid uncertainty around whether President Xi Jinping…