Will China Save the Planet?

by Barbara Finamore

Overview

Now that Trump has turned the United States into a global climate outcast, will China take the lead in saving our planet from environmental catastrophe? Many signs point to yes. China, the world's largest carbon emitter, is leading a global clean energy revolution, phasing out coal consumption and leading the development of a global system of green finance.

But as leading China environmental expert Barbara Finamore explains, it is anything but easy. The fundamental economic and political challenges that China faces in addressing its domestic environmental crisis threaten to derail its low-carbon energy transition. Yet there is reason for hope. China's leaders understand that transforming the world's second largest economy from one dependent on highly polluting heavy industry to one focused on clean energy, services and innovation is essential, not only to the future of the planet, but to China's own prosperity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781509532636
Publisher:	Polity Press
Publication date:	12/03/2018
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.50(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Barbara Finamore is a Senior Attorney and Asia Senior Strategic Director at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). She has over three decades of experience in environmental law and energy policy, with a focus on China for twenty-five years. In 1996, she founded NRDC’s China Program, the first clean energy program to be launched by an international NGO.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements 

List of Abbreviations

Introduction: China: The New Climate Torchbearer?

Chapter One: China’s Climate Diplomacy

Chapter Two: Dethroning Old King Coal

Chapter Three: Catalyzing the Clean Energy Revolution

Chapter Four: Jumpstarting the Electric Vehicle Industry

Chapter Five: Greening China’s Financial System

Epilogue: China in the Driving Seat

Editorial Reviews

"A hugely informative and readable book about how much China is doing - and needs to do - to spur the clean energy revolution that is a crucial element in the fight against climate change. I highly recommend it."
—Todd Stern, Former Special Envoy for Climate Change under President Obama

"Finamore has written an impressively well-researched and truly fascinating account of China's fitful odyssey to climate consciousness. In an otherwise pretty bleak global tableau, this progress offers some welcome grounds for hope."
—Orville Schell, Arthur Ross Director, Center on US-China Relations, Asia Society

"A must-read."
—Make Wealth History

"Barbara Finamore has written a highly readable and informative overview of China's role in the global climate change battle. Will China Save the Planet? is a good primer for environmental policy analysts and anyone else interested in studying feasible solutions to climate change, humanity's greatest threat."
—Eurasia Review

"If you want to read one book on China's energy and environmental transformation, Finamore's lucid volume is the one."
—Asian Review of Books

"Authoritative and comprehensive."
—The South China Morning Post

"Finamore is the right person to write such a concise and informative book. . . . She takes a balanced approach—being an outsider but drawing on her firsthand knowledge and experience of an insider, thus making the narrative and analysis concrete and convincing."
—China Review International

"For all its importance, it is quite hard to follow environmental developments in China. One the most useful resources I've come across is Barbara Finamore's book Will China Save the Planet?"
—The Earthbound Report

From the Publisher