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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to the new books network.
- [00:07]
B
This is the Nordic Asia Podcast.
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A
Welcome to the Nordic Asia Podcast, a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region. I'm your host, Ariana Spitkanen, a doctoral researcher at the center for East Asian Studies at the University of Durgu in Finland. In this episode, we'll talk about recent trends in China's climate and environmental policies and the associated challenges and opportunities in cooperation between China and the European Union. I'm joined by Dr. Hermann Aubier, who is currently a researcher at the center for Climate Change, Energy and Environmental Law at the University of Eastern Finland and is also affiliated to the center for East Asian Studies at the University of Torbu. Dr. Aubier has a long track record of research and teaching related to China and he's currently focusing on China's climate and air quality governance and its policy relevance for EU China relations. Dr. Rabier, welcome to the Nordic Asia Podcast.
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B
Good morning, Harina. Thank you for having me.
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A
So, just to start off, could you talk a bit about what sort of topics you've recently been focusing in your research in relation to China and climate action and these China EU relations?
- [01:16]
B
Yes, absolutely. So indeed I started working at this center for Climate Change, Energy and Environmental Law, but I'm part of this climate change cluster and this work I started was last year, actually in January. So I've spent the last year looking at China's air quality and climate policies and laws. And I'm part of a project led by Yulia Yamineva and we have also colleagues from the Finnish Meteorological Institute and also a doctoral student focusing on Europe. And basically what we do is we are mapping out the policies and laws that seek to govern this emerging nexus between climate and air quality. Because scientists, and also environmental social scientists and legal scholars or policy scholars have noticed over the years that there is a need for many meeting the global climate governance targets like the Paris Agreements and other treaties to synergize the climate goals with their air quality goals. And air quality historically has been treated separately from climate objectives. And we know that there are some air pollutants out there that have a very high warming potential, a very high impact on climate warming. And despite that, the integration of air quality goals and climate goals has remained overlooked quite a lot. So the point of this research is really to figure out how we can accelerate and deepen across the board this nexus approach. And so my goal, my specific goal in this project is to investigate how China has been trying to integrate these two governance fields of air quality and climate to achieve Greater synergies. And at first it wasn't very clear from a quick glance at the literature whether China was doing something significant there. But after one year of reviewing the literature and going to China twice for fieldwork, it turns out that China is doing quite a lot. And also in many ways, I would argue it's moving ahead of what is being done in Europe, for example. And I think when I started this project there was this kind of assumption that Europe was, you could say, one of the regions in the world that has this kind of leading position when it comes to both integrating climate policy in different policy fields and also integrating air quality goals and becoming more ambitious about those. So it turns out that China is actually doing really, really well there. And so the point now is how serious these goals are in not just the policy making process, but also to find out what is happening in China as a result of these progressive, ambitious policies. That's what I'm doing.
- [04:35]
A
Okay, sounds really interesting and important. Big themes that everybody is trying to find solutions for right now in the world. We'll talk more about this connection between climate and air quality in more detail a bit later. But if we start off from this sort of general, general situation in China, you know, China is often mentioned as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, but at the same time it's also a forerunner in many of the solutions related to the green transition. So there's this interesting dynamic right now with China that it used to be talked about quite a lot as a source of problems, and now it seems increasingly that it's also talked about as a source of solutions to those problems. You know, if we just look at the current situation in China, how would you describe the big picture in terms of tackling climate change?
- [05:24]
B
Right, yeah, this is actually a very good point because it often comes back in the media and I think it's part of this dominant narrative about how China is talked about in climate governance and maybe less so in terms of air quality, which is usually seen as more of a domestic issue, even though it's something I would argue has more cross border implications as well. But yeah, when it comes to the big picture, it's undeniable that China is still on a country basis, the largest emitter, that's for sure. And it has unfortunately contributed to significant amount of the additional greenhouse gases emissions since the Paris Agreement was ratified in 2015. And at the same time, it is now also the undisputed global cleantech superpower. It has rolled out solar especially, but also wind and also Big batteries to try to neutralize this problem of intermittency with wind and solar. And of course the EV we have heard about electric vehicle story and the boom in China. And so all this green or clean or low carbon tech, whatever we call them, they are actually making a dent, quite a big dent in the fossil fuel based economy of the country. Even though coal is still by far the largest source of power and electricity still in China, they are actually from last year showing possible signs of peaking this coal dependency, which is about half of the power mix. So one problem of course, when coal remains still such a big part of the energy mix is that even when you drive, let's say, an electric car in a Chinese city that is densely populated because air pollution is a more localized problem than climate warming, you do make a difference by shifting from combustion car to electric car for the health of the city population. But then because the grid is still so dependent on coal, in a way you are canceling part of the benefits because you are still burning coal at the end of the grid when you charge your electric car. So you are kind of moving around the problem partly, at least here in Finland for example, or in France you will have much higher benefit or in Norway for example, when you use an electric car because the electricity grid is almost entirely carbon free. So you don't move the problem around. So China still has to make significant progress in decarbonizing the grid in order for this clean tech to have a real full fledged effect, if you like, in terms of both air pollution and climate. But at least China is the undisputed world leader in those key technologies for the energy transition. So it puts China in a very advantageous position and at a historical crossroad, I would argue. And also I would like to just add that it's really essential to keep our eyes closely on how this peaking of the coal consumption in China is going to evolve this year and in the next couple of years, because it's going to be really make or break couple of years for China and the world because China is responsible for such a big share of the world's greenhouse gases emission and if they don't make this shift, we are in serious trouble. Not just the Chinese people, but also the rest of the world. So it's really an important thing to monitor.
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A
Okay. Yeah. So right now is really the crucial time and a few next years will, will show what happens and whether we're able to tackle this global issue effectively. Okay, well, as you mentioned there, you last year also visited China a couple of times talking to various stakeholders in the climate and environmental field there. So based on your visits in China, how would you describe the atmosphere on the ground in China regarding this climate and environmental issues? Is there a sense of optimism or clear signs of like a momentum in terms of efforts in tackling climate and environment? What sort of atmosphere do you see in China?
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B
Right. So I must say, you know, as someone who has been living in China for almost five years in the early 2000s and also into the early 2010s and you know, not having been there for a couple of years in the late 2010s early 2020s, because of COVID I was just following the developments in that regard from the news and remotely, and I was surprised when I first arrived from Finland in Beijing, because in Beijing, obviously they did so much to improve the air quality and to electrify, for example, the transportation. And you could really see the difference. There was a clear contrast there. And also it was very pleasant, for example, to walk around the street and just hear the very dim buzzing of the electric scooters and electric cars compared to the noise that I rem from the 2000s and 2000s and also the air quality had improved. I could see quite a few days with a blue sky and it really felt nice. And I was also in Shandong, where I used to teach for two years, and there too I saw quite a lot of positive change. I went to Ningpo also where I lived two years, and I saw as well again massive change with for example, the, the subway with almost 18 new subway lines built in a decade. And of course I used the bullet train that was very also impressive to move around the country with a low carbon footprint. So all of that really made quite an impression. If I look back at all the polluted air that I was breathing as a teacher in the early 2000s, and then 20 years later, this relatively clean air with all this nice reduced noise pollution as well with the electric transportation and all that. So it is an impressive thing. And then talking with experts in Beijing mostly was also quite enlightening. It's clear that there is a growing realization, at least in big first year cities and the capital, that the old fossil fuel growth model has run its course and that they need to replace it with all this range of cleantech. And the question is, of course, the pace, the timing, the barriers, whether they are able to overcome them, because of course, China is continental size. And if you go to certain provinces where I haven't been last year, but I'm sure If I were to go to a province like Shanxi, for example, which is very coal dependent, or other similar provinces, then it's a different story I've been told. Because the energy transition is not as straightforward as in those rich, deep pocketed first year cities that receive much more attention from the government and also they have the right kind of resources to allocate for accelerating the transition. So it's a mosaic with a lot of variation in the way China is operating this energy transition. But also I must say that when it comes to air quality, clearly it's still driving quite a lot the agenda. And so the atmosphere isn't just about saving China from air pollution nightmares, but it's also, I think, becoming increasingly so that because of all the more frequent natural disasters and also the intensity of the flood, the drought, the heat waves, you name them, all of this, the rising sea levels on the coast where most Chinese people live, you do see that. I think there is a growing awareness also about how climate warming is going to have quite a significant impact on China's ability to sustain its development model and emerging lifestyle, which is more comfortable, more convenient with all the digital tools and so forth. So there are lots of question marks about that. And I think the realization is about connecting the challenges of air quality and climate mitigation and figure out how to act on both fronts. For air quality, it's more like a sprint because you can make a difference almost like immediately for certain air pollutants, but with the climate warming it's more like a marathon. So you have to figure out how to run both at the same time, which is quite tricky. Right?
- [14:42]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well that actually, I mean, that relates to the next question that I was having. You know, we've been talking a lot about this climate change and air pollution, air quality and how they relate to each other. And just in general, one of the challenges in climate policy is that in order for it to be effective, it really requires a sort of wide ranging and integrative approach where you bring together different institutions and stakeholders from different areas. And this sort of climate versus air quality is one aspect of that. And that's something that you specifically have been focusing on in your research, these attempts in China to integrate policies on climate and pollution and air quality. So what does the progress currently look like in this field in China?
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B
Right, yeah, that's exactly where this nexus approach is so vital and it's at the core of the project I'm working on at the moment at the University of Eastern Finland. So indeed, China has made very significant strides in this integrated or coordinated approach to air pollution and carbon reduction or climate mitigation. The big milestone, if you like, was in September 2020 when the President or Secretary General of China, Xi Jinping, announced at the UN these dual carbon goals that was much awaited. And there was a lot of expectations basically about what will China do concretely about climate, because it had done so much domestically on air pollution. But when it came to climate, China was kind of, until then taking this position that they are part of the developing countries group and that gives them time and more room for maneuver to keep developing while having this very carbon intensive growth model. But then of course, with the scientists ringing alarm bells to the leadership and telling them, well, if we continue on that track, we are really in trou, we're going to basically shoot ourselves in the feet. So they came up with a whole gamut of policy proposals, but then this was still not clearly coming together at the very top. And then the leadership really took its own actually bureaucracy by surprise by announcing this at the UN without really preparing the ministries, by deliberating with them what could be a realistic goal. And so they actually, soon after announcing these dual carbon goals, they set up at the very top this central leading group which was there to coordinate the key ministries involved in this policy area. So in this case it was the Ministry of Environment and Ecology and of course the big macro planning body known as the ndrc, the National Development Reform Commission. And historically the NDRC was kind of leading the carbon intensity agenda, and the Ministry of Environment and Ecology would lead on air pollution. And those two was kind of dealt with separately. But with this dual carbon goal, they realized that all the command and control policies that had been so effective during the 2010s to reduce air pollution, they may not be as effective when it comes to carbon reduction because it involves millions of micro decisions with endless number of relevant actors. And so that's where China is actually trying to replicate what the EU has done for 20 years now with the ETS, the Emission Trading scheme. And so they have piloted that for quite a while. And now they have launched the national equivalent in China. And that's because we need market based tools to deal with carbon reduction. That's known as the kind of gold standard for making progress on that front. But then they have also released other important policy frameworks in the aftermath of these dual carbon goals. So they've announced also a kind of action plan known as one plus N. So one here is like this mandate from the top to make progress on carbon reduction and continue making progress on air quality. And the N stands for all the sectoral and regional sector action plans. That will be really the core part of the implementation of this shift at the top level. And then in June 2022, they also announced this very interesting policy which is super relevant for what we do here in our project, which is this implementation plan to enhance the synergy precisely on carbon reduction and air pollution reduction. This is really interesting for us in what we do in our Clmier Pathway project. We are looking for science based legal and policy pathways to accelerate and deepen this synergy or policy integration as it is better known in Europe. And so we can see here that China is really on track to make that happen. And that there's a real awareness, at least among the experts who are involved and who are advising the leadership. And of course, the tricky part is how this is going to be rolled out and implemented at the local level, because we famously know among China observers that there is this fragmentation right in the way China implements its policy. And there are all these famous expressions in Chinese that when there is a policy coming from the top, there is a counter policy from the bottom. And so the challenge really for the central government is to make the local government comply with this new paradigm shift. And that's not going to be a walk in the park.
- [20:44]
A
Yeah, that's really something that we know about China, that even if in terms of whatever issue, even if there is a clear effort and commitment from the central government to do something about it, then the implementation of the actual measures is usually then the tricky part. So I guess it's the same in these issues as well. But if we then move on to this China EU dynamic, you already mentioned there briefly that China has also taken inspiration from the European Union in some of these measures. And your research specifically has dealt with this cooperation possibilities between China and the eu. But of course, now, recently, in recent years, in an increasing manner, there's been a lot of tensions overall between China and the west, including Europe, and there's just generally a lot of uncertainty in the overall direction of the global political situation. So in light of this uncertainty and this tense global political situation, which really seems to be only becoming more tense as we come into 2026, how would you describe the current situation on climate cooperation between China and the European Union? Is there a lot of emphasis on cooperation and how is it working currently?
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B
Right, yeah, that's a very good question, very timely, and I'm sure a lot of people are asking themselves the same Question at the moment. Last year, for example, when I joined in spring, this EU China Green Governance dialogue, funded by the EU and Eins Seidl foundation, is implementing this. And that was a very good week long program. We got the chance to meet, for example, some of the people who deal with these questions on a daily basis, like the head of the Green section of the EU China delegation in Beijing. And he told us, me and the other participants of this dialogue that the color of EU China cooperation is green. There was this kind of hope or I guess some kind of expectation that despite all the, yeah, the geopolitical tensions and this shift from geopolitics to geoeconomics, with the trade disputes becoming increasingly blurry, with the geopolitical ones, like we see with the recent EV tariffs, which may come to a resolution soon. But the point here is that there are indeed some real difficulties in balancing the two domains. And if you talk, for example, with the European counterpart of China's Ministry of Commerce or the NDRC who deal with economic and industrial policy, you would have in Brussels people from this Directorate Generals on trade and other similar DGs, and they will be very aware of those tensions and they will be very skeptical about how much space there is left for cooperation because of this focus on competition and security. And so we have to balance that. And obviously the planet and our one atmosphere don't care whether we get along or not between the EU and China when it comes to industry or competition, broadly speaking. And they need basically human beings to cooperate if we want to stabilize our atmosphere and the temperature of our planet. And the same goes for all the other environmental crises we are facing, all these planetary boundaries that we are crossing. So we need to go from negative tipping points to positive tipping points. And I think for people who really can't live without cars, yeah, definitely moving from combustion cars to electric cars, it has a lot of positive effects that I can think of in terms of reducing pollution of all kinds, not just air pollution or noise pollution, but also reducing dependencies, for example, on certain kind of materials that are being imported to keep using combustion cars and to become more autonomous basically, when it comes to energy, so that this can not be leveraged geopolitically. So clearly there is a kind of similar outlook, I would say, between the EU and China when it comes to this energy security, especially in Europe after the beginning of the war in Ukraine. We can see here a bit of convergence, I think, but without full alignment, of course. And sometimes I think on the Chinese side, it's important to distinguish the stakes of different actors to have a more discerning, more differentiated perception of how different actors in China have different reasons to act differently when it comes to this green agenda or the competition agenda. For example, this EV tariff, I think, or for example, this month in EU we started to implement this cbam, this carbon border adjustment mechanism. And we have seen in the news the Chinese side being quoted through mofcom, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, and of course the Ministry of Commerce. It's understandable that they have to respond critically to this CBAM and start to kind of frame it as something protectionist, even though it's not. If you really look closely at the cbam, it's coming from a good place in many ways. There are a lot of good people in Europe who have worked on CBAM to really try to kick the ball forward on climate and carbon reduction so that we don't have to wait for the whole world to come to a perfect consensus which will be too late. And so there are actually people I've talked to in China who perfectly understand the rationale behind sebam. And I'm sure if you talk with people at the Ministry of Environment and Ecology in China, they will say it's a good thing. But ofcom, they have to protect the interest of the industry, especially the short term interest. And if they look at steel industry in China, for sure it's not ready yet to meet all the CBAM requirements. And there are all kinds of technical issues that we don't have time to talk about here. But they also stand a bit in the way from a short term perspective to find this kind of a consensual atmosphere between EU and China on those topics. But the point is eventually China is building also its own version of the ETS very fast and they have all the technology, all the capacity to roll out this clean tech to also get where the EU is trying to get. And there too I see some room for convergence. And I think considering what's happening in the US and other parts of the world, this so called green backlash, we need the EU and China to moving forward on the green transition because it's in the interest of the EU and China, regardless of what's happening elsewhere in the world. But it's also in the interest of the world that these two big economic entities are working together and signaling to the rest of the world that this is the way forward to leave fossil fuels behind and embrace the clean tech.
- [27:59]
A
All right, well, in a nutshell, based on this discussion, it sounds like obviously in climate and environmental issues right now, the challenges that we're facing are really serious and severe. But at the same time, and perhaps even somewhat surprisingly, with China's recent efforts and also this China EU cooperation, it seems that there is also some perhaps room for cautious optimism in the way that things are moving forward. So even though the challenge is really a serious, perhaps some light at the end of the tunnel in this regard, and at least, as you said, the color of cooperation is green. So with that positive note, we can end this episode of the Nordic Asia Podcast. Thank you very much, Dr. Obief, for coming to the podcast to talk about China's climate and environmental issues. A really timely topic, important discussion. So, yeah, thank you very much.
- [28:58]
B
Thank you.
- [28:59]
A
Thank you for joining the Nordic Asia Podcast showcasing Nordic collaboration in studying Asia.
- [29:08]
B
You have been listening to the Nordic Asia Podcast.