China Environmental Law

A discussion of China’s environmental and energy laws, regulations, and policies

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Entries from February 2009

Happy Birthday CELB!

February 28th, 2009 · 4 Comments

China Environmental Law Blog (CELB) is one year old today.  Actually, tomorrow is our real birthday, if tomorrow were February 29; but it isn’t, so we’re celebrating today. 
The generosity of your gifts during this period of economic distress has been truly astounding.  I can’t count the number of Adobe Acrobat 7.0 discs we received.  Who [...]

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Tags: miscellany

China’s Energy Efficiency Gains

February 27th, 2009 · 2 Comments

China fine tuned its 2008 “energy intensity” number yesterday and announced that the energy used to generate each dollar of gross domestic product fell 4.59 percent (to 1.107″ton of coal equivalents”/10,000RMB of GDP).  This is good news, but will still require over the next two years a combined 10.4% drop from the 2005 baseline to [...]

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Tags: 11th Five year Plan · carbon emissions · climate change · energy efficiency · energy policy · power generation

West Blamed for China’s Economic Rise

February 26th, 2009 · No Comments

Here’s something from the “I hope they didn’t spend too much money on that study” department: “West blamed for rapid increase in China’s CO2“.  The Norwegians are set to drop this bombshell old chestnut in a soon to be released report according to an article in the Guardian.
When you have structured an economy on an [...]

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Tags: carbon emissions · climate change

The Birds of Shanghai (Part 2)

February 25th, 2009 · No Comments

The original The Birds of Shanghai post remains one of the most popular here at CELB.  Shanghai Daily (SD) just ran a story about one of Shanghai’s most active birders, Gu Ren, so the time seems ripe to revisit this issue. 
The city once had 370 bird species according to “Shanghai Birds, Resources and Their Habitat” (1993), [...]

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Tags: birds · miscellany

Natural Resources Defense Council delivers the goods

February 24th, 2009 · No Comments

The good folks at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) have joined the list of groups offering advice for US-China climate change engagement “Strengthening US-China Climate Change and Energy Engagement: Recommendations for Leaders and Policymakers in the US and China”
The NRDC has a unigue and valuable perspective on these issues since it
has been working on [...]

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Tags: NRDC · carbon emissions · climate change · greenpeace

US - China: Has the Climate Changed on Climate Change?

February 23rd, 2009 · 4 Comments

On the day after the departure of Secretary of State Clinton from China, the answer is a resounding yes.
There is no doubt that the issue of climate change received much more attention during Clinton’s visit than in any previous US-China dialogues.  Her public appearances in Beijing included a tour of the Taiyanggong Thermal Power Plant [...]

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Tags: US-China relations · carbon emissions · climate change

Twitter me CELB

February 22nd, 2009 · No Comments

We’ve finally entered the second half of the first decade of the 21stcentury here at CELB, and signed up for the Twitter thing. We are repelled by the cutesy vernacular which has grown up around this phenomenon, but hey all the kids (and not a few geriatrics) are doing it.  Updates appear on the left sidebar. [...]

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Tags: miscellany

Shanghai + Lhasa = ?

February 20th, 2009 · 2 Comments

Many of you in an idle moment have no doubt pondered what the offspring of a liaison between Lhasa and Shanghai would look like.  Speculate no more.  I have found their love child and she is living on Hongqiao Road in Shanghai.  With the coloring and facial features of her Tibetan father, she inherits the slender [...]

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Tags: miscellany

University of Texas School of Law Energy Law Fellowship

February 19th, 2009 · No Comments

I have been asked if I could post the following announcement.  It looks pretty interesting so we will drop the normally strict no third-party posting policy here at CELB.  In fact it looks so good, if CELB announces a move to Austin in the fall you will know why.  Hmm, on second thought, maybe I should [...]

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Tags: Energy Law

Yangtze River Pollution Campaign

February 18th, 2009 · 1 Comment

The Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) is undertaking a major review of Yangtze River pollution loads and discharges.  Chinanews.com reports (Chinese only, see here for an abbreviated English translation).  Enforcement actions will be taken against those entities that are found to be discharging without a permit or in excess of their permit limits.  This is [...]

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Tags: Yangtze River · water pollution