We are hiring a China-focused Environmental Law and Policy Fellow at the Emmett Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA! This is a two-year position, and the hire will work closely with me. See here for details: 

I spent the past three days in Beijing doing back-to-back meetings and presentations with people working on energy and climate. The U.S. election outcome came up often, obviously, with questions about the implications for different countries, sectors, policies and negotiations. But one comment from a Chinese researcher provided striking, unexpected clarity. What she said is that if as an individual you are committed to promoting a green future, an election changes nothing about what you need to do. You need to keep working and doing the right things. Individuals with this conviction work in governments, corporations, academia and civil society around the world. My short visit was an inspiring opportunity to connect and reconnect with some of those people in China, once again seeing the tireless work being done to adopt more ambitious policies, implement clean energy on the ground, improve emissions reporting and carry out many of the countless other steps needed to put the country on track to carbon neutrality. Climate action in the U.S. will also continue on the state level, in enterprises and in many communities. Their job will be made much harder by an obstructionist president and Congress but again it changes nothing about what needs to be done. The need for the clean energy transition or acting on the grave threat of climate change were not on the ballot even in the U.S. - those policies remain popular but became the victims of unrelated politics. I'm not downplaying the fact that Trump's likely policies will slow down the energy transition in the U.S., compared with what Harris would have done. But the largest potential impact of Trump's presidency would be a knock-on effect on the efforts in the rest of the world, and that impact will only happen if others let them be swayed by obstructionist rhetoric and policies from the U.S.

📢 ICYMI: Yesterday, we released the latest China Global episode, where @BonnieGlaser and Michael Davidson (@east_winds) discuss #China's climate policies. What is currently driving China's policies? Is there room for int'l cooperation? 🇨🇳🌏

📢 ICYMI: Yesterday, we released the latest China Global episode, where @BonnieGlaser and Michael Davidson (@east_winds) discuss #China's climate policies. What is currently driving China's policies? Is there room for int'l cooperation? 🇨🇳🌏

This is literally how it's supposed to work. A 51/49 JV between a US firm and China's LONGi making solar panels in the US with American workers earning decent pay getting trained by Chinese staff who have the tech and know-how -- thanks to IRA & tariffs.

All languages covey information at a similar rate when spoken (39bits/s). Languages that are spoken faster have less information density per syllable! One of the coolest results in linguistics.