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The China Environment Forum (CEF) seeks to initiate sustainable development approaches in China by: promoting information sharing, facilitating policy debates, and most importantly, building networks between U.S. and Chinese policymakers, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), researchers, businesses, and journalists to resolve common environmental and energy problems. Through monthly meetings, CEF aims to identify the most important environmental and sustainable development issues in China and explore creative ideas and opportunities for governmental and nongovernmental cooperation. The Wilson Center's Asia Program periodically cosponsors meetings with CEF. The knowledge gained and networks we have built through these meetings have established CEF as one of the most reliable sources for China-environment information.
Topics
Environmental Health
In the fall of 2006, the Woodrow Wilson Center’s China Environment Forum began a partnership with the Hoffman Environmental Institute at Western Kentucky University (WKU) to carry out the China Environmental Health Project, which is supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Regional Development Mission/Asia and CEHP partners. CEF is assisting WKU and Chinese scientists in exploring environmental health issues linked with karst water geography and coal emissions. In addition, CEF is launching a new section on its webpage devoted to exploring environmental health challenges in China in four main areas:
(1) Declining air quality;
(2) Water pollution and scarcity;
(3) Land degradation and waste problems; and,
(4) Environmental health policies, research, and activism.
In these four areas CEF staff will compile news stories and generate short fact sheets and research briefs that focus on the environmental health impacts of China’s pollution and resource degradation both domestically and globally. The website will also include links to Chinese government, international assistance organizations, nongovernmental groups, and research centers conducting projects and research on environmental health issues in China. Articles in the upcoming China Environment Series issues 9 and 10 will center on these four areas of environmental health in China. Sometime in 2007 we hope to launch an electronic China environmental health newsletter.
Energy
Perhaps no country besides the United States will have greater impact on global energy strategies in the coming years than the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The world’s most populous nation already consumes more energy and emits more greenhouse gases than any country except the United States, and may surpass the United States in both categories within two decades.
Water
Perhaps the number one growth constraint, water shortages threaten China’s ability to feed itself, create millions of environmental refugees, and threaten hydroelectric output.
Environmental NGOs, Public Participation, and Governance
In reaction to daunting environmental problems, the Chinese government has been introducing increasingly progressive environmental laws, welcoming assistance from international organizations, and opening up political space for Chinese environmental NGOs.
Publications
First published in 1997, the annual China Environment Series, a 200+ page journal featuring leading scholarship and policy analysis on China’s environmental and energy challenges, is now sent free of charge to over 1,800 policymakers, practitioners, journalists, scholars, and interested citizens in the United States, Asia, and Europe. It is the only English language print publication that focuses exclusively on China's Environmental and energy challenges. The goal of this publication is to help environmental activists, government officials, and other professionals understand the challenges and opportunities in environmental and energy work in China. In addition to feature articles, commentaries, and meeting summaries written by China environmental and energy specialists from the policy, NGO, and academic spheres, the China Environment Series includes an inventory of U.S. government, U.S. and Chinese NGOs, and other bilateral environmental projects taking place in China. Issue 7 (2005) was our first peer-reviewed China Environment Series and the first time the publication was translated into Chinese. Our latest issue, Issue 8 (2006), focuses on governance and civil society, one third of which will be published bilingually.
Reaching Across the Water, printed in 2006 this trilingual publication examines international cooperation promoting sustainable river basin governance in China. Promoting Sustainable River Basin Governance: Crafting Japan-U.S. Water Partnerships in China, printed in 2005, is a collection of research papers on river basin management, financing, and public participation issues in Japan, China, and the United States. Crouching Suspicions, Hidden Potential: United States Environmental and Energy Cooperation with China, printed in 2002, is a report that explores the opportunities and challenges for the United States in developing a coherent approach to energy and environmental relations with China.
Funders
The China Environment Forum workshops, publications, and exchanges over the past two years have been supported by generous grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Japan Foundation's Center for Global Partnership, Waters Corporation, Shell China, Ltd., and the Tamaki Foundation.
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