EVENTS

Abstract:

With chart-topping levels of air, water, and soil pollution, China has embarked upon a significant new effort to clean-up its environment. The leaders have adopted amendments to the country’s Environmental Protection Law, pledged to achieve a CO2 emissions peak around 2030, and taken tough steps to strengthen environmental compliance by Chinese firms. Are these measures enough to turn around China’s environmental challenge? What further policies might be needed? What are the implications of China’s environmental protection efforts for the Asia-Pacific region and beyond?

About the Speaker:

Elizabeth Economy is the C.V. Starr senior fellow and director for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Dr. Economy has published widely on both Chinese domestic and foreign policy. She is the award-winning author of The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to China's Future (Cornell University Press, 2004; 2nd edition, 2010; Japanese edition, 2005; Chinese edition, 2011). Her most recent book, with Michael Levi, is By All Means Necessary: How China's Resource Quest is Changing the World (Oxford University Press, 2014). Dr. Economy has published articles in foreign policy and scholarly journals including Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and the Harvard Business Review; and op-eds in the New York Times and Washington Post, among others.

Dr. Economy serves on the board of managers of Swarthmore College and the board of trustees of the Asia Foundation. She is also on the advisory council of Network 20/20 and the science advisory council of the Stockholm Environment Forum. She is a member of the World Economic Forum (WEF)'s Global Agenda Council on the United States and served as a member and then vice chair of WEF's Global Agenda Council on the Future of China from 2008 to 2014. She has taught undergraduate and graduate level courses at Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, and the University of Washington's Jackson School of International Studies. Dr. Economy received her BA from Swarthmore College, her AM from Stanford University, and her PhD from the University of Michigan. In 2008, she received an honorary doctor of laws degree from Vermont Law School.