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ABOUT THE CHINA PROGRAM
China’s action, engagement, and leadership for a clean and low-carbon economy are critical for the global transition to a sustainable future. The CGS China Program supports this goal through an enhanced understanding of China’s opportunities, benefits, and challenges of the transition, China’s role in delivering global 1.5ºC pathways, and potential bilateral and multilateral opportunities with key countries, including engagement with the United States at all levels. We do this through analysis and engagement—leveraging world-leading modeling and analytical capabilities, an integrated team of scholar-practitioners, researchers, and students, established relationships with Chinese partners, and a synergistic portfolio of high-impact projects in other regions. By linking strengths across countries, the CGS China Program provides a unique and rich environment for building a shared US-China community of expertise on energy, climate, and development strategies.
Strengths: We have a large China Program team with expertise in both the U.S. and China, embedded in a center with expertise in other key countries through policy, modeling, empirical assessment, and engagement in key topic areas. Our partnership strategy focuses on developing joint research products and long-term collaborations with leading teams in China and internationally. Key research topics and areas include: national and subnational economy-wide policy pathways modeling (GCAM & GCAM-China), sectoral (power, industry, buildings, etc.) decarbonization strategies, plant-by-plant coal transition & social impacts, methane and other non-CO2 GHGs, air quality & public health benefits, role of state-owned enterprises (SOE) in energy transition in China & beyond, China’s overseas investment & south-south collaboration, energy demand & behavior changes, circular economy, and carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies and policies. This combination of policy engagement, research collaborations, and technical skills allows us to develop high-impact assessments of complex, critical topics in China.
Policy Impact: Our team’s broad links with current policy discussions in China and internationally—and our collaborative partnership strategy—have proven effective at targeting research and ensuring impact and broad awareness of the research in policy-linked conversations. Our team has led extensive multi-institution collaborative research on key policy topics such as carbon neutrality pathways, methane, power sector decarbonization, and more— which helps generate shared understanding for scientific and policy questions.
- High Ambition Coal Phase-out in China. This project explores the feasibility of an accelerated coal retirement in China to meet the Paris goals. Based on a plant-by-plant assessment of multiple technical, economic, and environmental criteria, it illustrates what potential phaseout pathways are in support of the 1.5 °C goal. It also evaluates the economic, social, and grid stability impacts of the phaseout.
- US-China Track 2 Dialogues. CGS is supporting US-China research discussions on long-term strategies and co-benefits analysis.
- Methane Mitigation and US-China Collaboration. CGS conducts research on methane mitigation and actively engages with policy communities through multi-institutional collaboration globally. Most recently, CGS has led in-depth research on the roadmap for US-China methane collaboration under the U.S.-China Joint Glasgow Declaration with twenty US, Chinese, and international research institutes. This study provides a comprehensive analysis of challenges and opportunities for methane mitigation in the US and China, as well as opportunities for improving methane mitigation outcomes through collaborative activities and research. Specifically, it provides a comprehensive overview of the current methane emissions, policy frameworks, and mitigation opportunities in both countries. Building on new, multi-model analysis and the survey of recent literature, it provides a quantitative basis for methane mitigation potential in China and the US under carbon neutrality or net-zero pathways. It also sheds light on opportunities for collaboration between the two countries.
- Expert Dialogues on Energy, Environment, and Development. CGS convenes academic researchers and policy experts from China and globally on Long Term Strategy planning and clean energy policy development in China, including deep decarbonization pathways and policy implications, the linkage between long-term strategy and near-term policy actions, and co-benefits of climate mitigation.
- Green Banks. This research focuses on innovative financing mechanisms that accelerate clean energy deployment at the national, provincial, and local levels. Building lessons learned from green banks in the U.S., it provides recommendations on developing green banks, a public-private partnership, within Chinese cities and provinces.
- Energy Economics and Policy. CGS researchers have ongoing collaborations with researchers in China to work on research projects related to Chinese energy policies. For example, a project collaborating with the State Grid Shanghai Electric Power Research Institute and Tongji University examines how behavioral interventions through special environmental events impact consumer electricity consumption behavior in Shanghai. A second project collaborating with Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology evaluates the impact of solar PV poverty alleviation programs in China. A third project collaborating with the Beijing Institute of Technology analyzes the association between government official attributes and city-level energy-saving performance.
- Global Coal Analysis and Policy for Decarbonization. In partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies, we generate a detailed plant-by-plant dataset of current and proposed coal power plants globally and assess implications and potential rapid retirement trajectories. Our current phase of work focuses on deep dives in China and India.
The CGS China Program team consists of leading senior scholar-practitioners and project leads with strong expertise and experiences in Chinese, U.S. and international topics, including:
- Ryna Cui, Co-Director
- Mengye Zhu, Co-Director
- Nate Hultman
- Jiehong Lou
- Jenna Behrendt
- Lucy Qiu
- Meredydd Evans
- Steve Smith
- Xinyue Li
- Xinzhao Cheng
- Guangxiao Hu
Our team also centrally integrates graduate student research assistants, including four current Ph.D. students working on China issues, as well as post-doctoral and post-masters researchers. Visiting scholars and students from China (e.g., from Tsinghua University, Beijing Institute of Technology, and others) have been an essential part of our team.
- China’s Path to Carbon Neutrality: Regional Disparities and Strategic Investments in Renewable Energy
- Report: U.S., China Must Collaborate on Carbon Dioxide Removal
- Collaborating for Climate: CDR Policies and Practices in the U.S. and China
- Navigating the Coal Transition: Employment Impacts in China and the U.S.
- CGS China program led Maryland delegation to Beijing for US-China climate engagement
- Navigating the CMM Policy Landscape in Shanxi: Strategic Approaches to Enhance Methane Mitigation
- Policy Gaps and Progress in Methane Mitigation: A Detailed Analysis of Major Global Emitters
- From Potential to Reality: Enhancing Solar PV Efficiency in China
- Paving the Way for Climate-Centric Policies: U.S.-China Methane Mitigation Strategies
- ICYMI: CGS participates in U.S.-China event on subnational climate action
- CGS and Partners Celebrate the Launch of GCAM-China-v6 in Beijing
- The new U.S.-China climate statement: Implications for domestic action and international response at COP28
- New in-depth analysis into the co-benefits of air quality and climate mitigation in two key Chinese provinces
- Commentary: U.S.-China climate meeting outcome in Beijing, July 2023
- Renewed U.S.-China Climate Leadership: Opportunities for collaboration and enhanced action
- The Global Coal Conundrum: How to address overseas coal investments as developing countries race to meet ambitious climate goals
- New provincial-level pathways to achieve China’s carbon neutrality and improve air quality in Shandong and Guangdong
- New multi-model analysis on the role of electrification in China’s carbon neutrality transition
- Enhanced methane reductions are possible through U.S.-China collaboration
- New analysis of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries identifies synergies across societal goals, policy priorities, and low-carbon transition potential
- The Belt Road Initiative (BRI): Three positive impacts of a successful low-carbon transition in Africa
- CGS and UC’s California-China Climate Institute Unveil Strategy to Kickstart China’s Coal Phase-Down
- Five Key Takeaways from Xi’s Speech at the Climate Leaders’ Summit
- CGS analysis illustrates pathways for rapid coal retirement in China
- The experts and research behind the CGS China Program
- China’s New Growth Pathway: from the 14th Five Year Plan to Carbon Neutrality
- New opportunities to adopt a “No New Coal” strategy in China’s 14th Five-Year Plan
- Qiu Receives NSF Grant to Study Energy Inequality During the Coronavirus Pandemic
- Local economies soar in rural China through new solar initiatives
- New report shows a high ambition coal power phaseout in China is feasible
- Progress in throttling back China's rapid coal expansion is under threat