China and Climate Change

24 MB MP3

We’d like to do a show about China as part of our miniseries on climate change, but we need your help in figuring out how to do it and what, specifically, to talk about. We know that one reason Kyoto broke down was the difference between how the U.S. and China would be forced to deal with restrictions on emissions, and that China is the world’s #1 consumer of coal, and #2 consumer of oil, behind the U.S. But there’s also evidence that China is aware of the consequences of an oil-based economy, and is considering leap-frogging their development straight to a green economy, or at least one that’s post fossil fuel.

So is this about China as a case study for developing countries? Is it about China’s impact on the global conversation about climate change? Is it about what China is doing about climate change (and what they’re not)?

Help us figure this out.

Doug Ogden

Director of the Energy Foundation‘s China program. He joins us from San Francisco.

Bill McKibben

Environmental journalist and author of The End of Nature. He joins us by phone from the Adirondacks.

Mikkal Herberg

Director of the Globalization and Asian Energy Security Program at the National Bureau of Asian Research. He joins us by phone from Seattle.