Blanketed by freshly fallen snow, mountains of the Teton Range loomed above as I explored the picturesque town of Jackson, Wyoming. A native Bostonian, I had no experience in the heart of the country, but that week I wasn’t the only outsider wandering Jackson’s icy streets. In November 2018, experts from all over the world gathered in Jackson to attend the Jackson Hole Center for Global Affairs Forum with one common goal: to identify the challenges and opportunities for coal communities worldwide as they transition their economies away from coal.  

A high degree of political will is one of several pre-conditions needed for good environmental management, said Kim DeRidder, Regional Director for Environmental Programs at the Asia Foundation. He spoke at a round-table on Advancing Environmental Governance Across Asia hosted by the Asia Foundation. While he emphasized the need to promote political will within Asia, he questioned whether the bold pledges that some Asian countries made in the Paris Agreement, such as the Philippines’ pledge to reduce emissions by 70 percent by 2030 and Indonesia by 26 percent, were realistic given the significant disconnect between what a country claims it is going to do and what it can actually do.

In many Middle Eastern wars, targeting civilian infrastructure has become all too common. As we documented in a previous article,  both state and non-state actors in wars since 2011 in Libya, Syria, and Yemen have targeted water, sanitation, and energy facilities to displace urban populations, punish civilians, and render local attempts to provide public services untenable.  Destroying environmental and civilian infrastructure directly undermines livelihoods and human security. 

For solar industry professionals in China, May 31, 2018, is a day that will live in infamy. At the beginning of 2018, Chinese domestic solar developers were riding a high after reaching a record 53 GW of newly installed solar capacity the previous year. Most sources projected this breakneck pace of new solar construction would continue through 2018. On June 1, 2018, however, the National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Finance, and National Energy Agency announced a new policy to lower the solar feed-in-tariff, halt subsidized utility-scale development, and implement a quota for distributed projects. Industry professionals refer to the infamous policy as “531” for May 31, 2018, the day that the solar industry ground to a temporary halt or “freezing point.”

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are revving up in China. As part of the 2018 CCTV Spring Festival Gala, more than one hundred AVs swerved perfect 8’s on the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, showcasing Baidu Apollo’s latest AV technology. China is a latecomer to the automotive industry, but it is taking the wheel in autonomous driving technologies and electric and hydrogen cars, viewing the sector as an unprecedented opportunity to play catchup with the rest of the world (See China Environment Forum webinar on China’s new energy vehicle trends below). Companies in China and around the world want to tap into the lucrative autonomous technology market that could reach $2.3 trillion by 2030.

The unabated growth of natural resource consumption raises risks that we will outstrip the capacities of ecosystems and governance institutions. At the same time, to achieve important global goals related to poverty alleviation, public health, equity and economic development such as those embodied in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we will simultaneously need more resources and better management of natural resources everywhere.

“China can simultaneously be the world’s biggest polluter and the leading developer and employer of clean energy technologies,” said Joanna Lewis, an associate professor of science, technology, and international affairs at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at a recent event at The Brookings Institute on China’s local and global environmental agenda. “It’s not just megawatts being added, it’s actual investment in the innovation of these [renewable energy] technologies.”

Solar farms—just like regular farms—cover large swaths of land, requiring between 3.5 to 16.5 acres per MW of generating capacity. The largest solar plant in the world, the 648 MW Kamuthi facility in Tamil Nadu, India, covers ten square kilometers. But it will be dwarfed by the 3,450 MW facility under construction on China’s Tibetan Plateau, which will span 298 square kilometers when completed. Building these large plants requires fundamentally changing how the land they sit on is used, which—without careful planning—could have negative impacts on the environment and local communities that could potentially lead to conflict. The backlash could not only derail solar projects, but could also fuel resistance to future renewable energy development.