Insights: WRI's Blog

When people talk about climate change, the planet-warming gas that invariably comes to mind is carbon dioxide. 。

Australia’s bush fires are the worst in the country’s recorded history. Already, millions of acres have burned, creating dangerous levels of air pollution, displacing nearly 90,000 people and killing a billion animals. Global Forest Watch Fires sheds light on what’s happening in Australia and the impacts fires could have

As the world turns attention to the UN climate meetings this week, news from China has captured global headlines: From January 2018 to June 2019, the country added 43 gigawatts (GW) of net new coal power capacity to its existing 1,000 GW coal fleet, while the rest of the world collectively reduced coal capacity by 8 GW. During the same period, China installed 85 GW of solar and wind power generation capacity. And from 2005-2018, China reduced its carbon intensity by 45.8% and increased its non-fossil fuels to 14.3% of its total primary energy mix.

If China is meeting its stated energy targets and has a goal to peak carbon emissions in 2030, is this success?

Not exactly – it depends on the timeline.

Even beyond the global urgency of achieving dramatic greenhouse gas emissions reductions, China must also consider if its current pathway is the most economically efficient and sustainable option for its own longer-term development. The continued expansion of coal in the short-term undercuts its aspiration to be an “ecological civilization” and increases the economic costs of China’s energy economy over the coming decades.

Interview on Manish Bapna, Executive Vice President and Managing Director, WRI.

Originally posted on Xinhua News. 

China's commitment to make the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) a green cause advancing sustainable development is admirable and far-sighted, said the deputy chief of a global research organization.

Originally published on China Daily

The China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative will likely be the most significant development in global finance in the coming decade, as it promotes investment of trillions of dollars in infrastructure across Asia, Europe and Africa. This region includes low-income countries, as well as fast-growing economies, including Indonesia, India, Vietnam and Pakistan.

More than 300 new bike-share services were launched worldwide last year. Ride-hailing services such as Uber and Didi Chuxing together provide more than 45 million rides a day. Electric scooters are accounting for more short trips in the places where they’re available and drones and autonomous vehicles are getting better every day.

These so-called “New mobility” services and technologies are not just a phenomenon in wealthy countries; middle- and low-income countries are also showing the way.

It’s an exciting time.

（This story originally appeared on World Economic Forum）

It’s not every day – or even every decade – that climate-friendly government policy in one country has ripple effects for companies spanning the globe. That’s what happened after China announced its New Energy Vehicle (NEV) mandate, part of its plan to sell 4.6 million electric vehicles by 2020 and ban cars with traditional internal combustion engines over the long term.

Next month’s UN climate summit in Katowice, Poland (COP24) is seen by many as the most important climate negotiation since 2015, when 196 countries created a vision for a zero-carbon future by adopting the landmark Paris Agreement. This year’s summit is the critical juncture for countries to agree on the rules for turning this vision into a reality, and to set stronger climate action in motion.

While all countries committed under the Paris Agreement to limit global temperature rise to 1.5˚C-2˚C (2.7-3.6˚ F), major questions remained: How can the world achieve this temperature goal? And what happens if it doesn’t?

The world’s leading climate scientists, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), answered these questions and more in their latest report released today. Nearly 100 scientists analyzed how the world can achieve the 1.5˚C goal, as well as impacts associated with this rise in temperature.