Premier Li Keqiang’s recent visit to the UK resulted in number of deals around climate change and clean energy. A few weeks later similar deals were reached with the U.S. These agreements received widespread attention in the media, with a focus on the speed with which policy in China has switched towards attempting to tackle rather than ignore environmental problems. Indeed, for some experts, these deals with the UK and US highlight the degree with which China has “come in from the cold” as the world’s largest polluter and is taking a shared interest in these global problems. Others are less optimistic and prefer to wait for the results of the upcoming 2014 UN meetings in New York and Lima, and the final 2015 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris that will replace the Kyoto Protocol.

The China Policy Institute blog has invited a number of experts to contribute to the ongoing debate on China’s policies on climate change, the environment, energy and natural resources as well as on the country’s role in the international climate negotiations.

Contributors include:

Philip Andrews-Speed, National University of Singapore

Alex Lo, Griffith University

Terry Townshend, The Global Legislators Organisation (GLOBE International)

Frank Jotzo, Australian National University

David Holmes, Monash University

Changhua Wu, The Climate Group, China

Barry Rabe, University of Michigan

Kaho Yu, King’s College London

Da Zhang and Karplus Valerie, Tsinghua- MIT China Energy and Climate Project