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The answer is that many things were lost. China’s move to terminate all official bi-national cooperation with the U.S. to mitigate the effects of climate change was not only short-sighted. It was, for China, a classic case of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. The action was purely political — to protest a visit to Taiwan by Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, a visit that had ampled precedent going back to 1977 when Speaker Newt Gingrich visited Taiwan. The consequences of China’s unprecedented and over-reactive action — eliminating countless programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, promote improve water quality, conserve natural habitats and bio-diversity — will have as much of a detrimental effect, if not more, on developing China as it will on the United States’ developed economy.
Here’s a case study of one opportunity — built for scale and speed — that has been lost …
(click for original, free to read version of this article from Environmental Progress & Sustainable Energy)
by Doug Barry, Senior Director of Communications, U.S.-China Business Council
(view original article in USCBC’s Fifty States, Fifty Stories series)
Policy entrepreneurs are plentiful in America. You can find them everywhere, devoting ideas and energy to getting things done. Terry Cooke founded the non-profit China Partnership of Greater Philadelphia with a focus on getting the United States and China to cooperate on climate change. Getting what he wants done has become more challenging as the two countries ping pong between cooperation, competition, and conflict.
How did he get here and how is he managing multiple challenges simultaneously? He’s been interested in global affairs for a long time, starting in 1988 when he joined the US Commerce Department as a foreign commercial service officer in Shanghai. His two-year posting there bracketed the Tiananmen Square convulsion. Years flew by with postings in Tokyo, Berlin, and Taiwan. In 2002 he took leave from the foreign service and started a consulting business focusing on Taiwan and high tech.
In 2006, Cooke joined the World Economic Forum (WEF) as Director of Asian CEO Partnership with a focus more on Japan than China. He left in 2008. “It was too much travel,” he recalled. “I worked in New York, had my family in Philadelphia, commuted to Geneva, and had responsibility for multiple events in Asia.”
One of the best parts of the WEF job was sitting in on multiple sectoral meetings with CEOs. His main takeaway was that many of these corporate leaders were talking about the challenges of climate change, not as PR or greenwashing, but about the need to transform their companies into low-carbon leaders. “I decided that was the hook that I wanted to hang the second half of my career on when I came back to Philadelphia.”
Cooke recalled his time in Berlin and the impression made by comparing what was then called West Germany with the East, which at the time was terribly polluted. When the Berlin Wall fell, the country united and the cleanup of the Eastern part of the country began. The lesson was that great progress to improve the environment is possible if the political will exists and if clear policy creates predictability for businesses and investors.
The good old days
In 2010, Cooke joined the Wilson Center, a Washington, DC think tank, as senior fellow for US-China climate cooperation. His research there led to publication of his book Sustaining US-China Cooperation in Clean Energy. Coincident with this research, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu introduced a “national labs program for the 21st century” for clean energy technologies as an outgrowth of the 10-year framework for US-China cooperation on energy and the environment pioneered by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson in the waning years of the George W. Bush administration.
President Barack Obama and Secretary Chu worked to expand Paulson’s program, adding three US-China clean energy research centers in different industrial areas: electric vehicles initially at the University of Michigan, clean coal at the University of West Virginia, and energy efficient buildings through a Penn State-led program at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.
“Disappointing as these decisions were, there was still potential in the climate change mitigation space, even as other areas like micro-electronics drifted further off-limits.”
To support and expand the energy-efficient buildings program, Cooke founded in 2011 the China Partnership of Greater Philadelphia whose mission was raising awareness and facilitating collaboration to create and bring to market low-carbon solutions for the built environment. For the first years, things went great with lots of local and Chinese partners, mayoral visits, and stakeholders to plan low-carbon futures for urban centers in the United States and China. In 2014, China Partnership of Greater Philadelphia and its partner organization in China, the TEDA EcoCenter, were competitively selected for and awarded a prestigious U.S.-China EcoPartnership Award, administered jointly by the U.S. and PRC Governments.
“We had some fits and starts, including an unfortunate near-death experience involving IP piracy.” Isn’t this ironic given the long-standing concerns the US government and private sector have about “collaborations” that lead to forced technology transfers and outright pilfering? “It would be if that’s what happened. Instead, the main culprit was an American in an American company.” The company did not want to make a public fuss because of reputational concerns. “We had to shift focus and change our business model to make sure that would never happen again, but it was a one-off, not something endemic with the work we were doing.”
Pulling the plug on energy cooperation
If not as immediately dire, there were other experiences that could have been crippling to his non-profit. Two of them involved former president Donald Trump, who pulled the United States out of the Paris Climate Accords and in 2020 terminated the US-China EcoPartnership program just seven days before leaving office. “Disappointing as these decisions were, there was still potential in the climate change mitigation space, even as other areas like micro-electronics drifted further off-limits.”
The shifting binaries involved with competition and cooperation were making the scope for business cooperation more limited and the non-profit’s work more problematic. Competition is now spilling into the space previously marked by cooperation. The shriveling of discourse between government leaders has only made things more difficult.
“What used to be very effective work through industrial cooperation in lowering emissions is now off the table, though some academic and some intergovernmental climate cooperation continues.”
Early in the Biden administration, excitement was generated by the appointment of John Kerry as climate envoy. Kerry and his PRC counterpart, Xie Zhenhua, had worked closely and cooperatively under Biden’s vice presidency during the Obama administration but Biden administration policy would not be a simple reset to that period. While cooperation continues in areas such as scientific exchange and standards setting, industrial cooperation toward low-carbon goals now enjoys little federal-level support. This even as the planet continues to warm and nations like China and India continue to struggle reducing their addiction to coal.
Kerry recently pointed out in a Foreign Affairs article that there’s still time to avoid disaster but that in the coming years many trillions of dollars will be needed to fund and field clean energy technology. The money, he said, must largely come from the private sector which stands to gain from what could amount to a new industrial revolution.
Cooke worries that the emphasis on zero-sum competition with China over recent years will make broad cooperation in climate change extremely difficult. “The competition drive is spilling into areas that used to be defined by cooperation,” he said. One example is the network of 11 national-level eco parks organized through the Greater Philadelphia-Tianjin EcoPartnership. Germany invested in one such park in 2020, focused on green maritime technology, to the tune of more than $3 billion. The PHL-TJ EcoPartnership had defined a focus on energy-efficient, securely smart and healthy buildings at sustainable-city scale for this network of 11 eco-parks. The emphasis was on large-scale opportunities supported by very large companies and leavened by the innovation of smaller, entrepreneurial companies. “Given the problems in the bilateral relationship, that large scale opportunity has receded for the foreseeable future at least.”
Enter the contradiction
Cooke is highly attuned to the potential for contradiction between commercial competition and climate cooperation, worrying that when Kerry steps down, the space for commercially led environmental solutions to be applied at scale and speed in the two largest global economies will shrink even more.
“What used to be very effective work through industrial cooperation in lowering emissions is now off the table, though some academic and some intergovernmental climate cooperation continues.” He concedes that the continuation of even these relationships is not assured given the political environment in both countries.
“My organization was about creating a platform for a US-Sino Eco-Park in China bringing advanced energy efficiency services and technologies to the park. That is viewed negatively now in Washington. What’s disappointing is that other countries friendly to us are now established in China in commercial areas that we’re better at but won’t be able to contribute to because official reluctance for cooperation.”
Cooke says: “The United States needs to be smart about its clean energy approach to China. Yes, China wants to dominate an emerging 21st century industry. But if we out-innovate and out-compete China technologically, we can access their market profitably and also collaborate commercially to forestall the worst effects of climate change. Is it really in the US interest not to have active engagement with China, aside from discrete small companies that are more easily taken advantage of? I’d prefer to see us going in with a convoy approach of large companies and smaller innovators protected by US government policies and focused on delivering measurable, low-carbon solutions at a globally impactful scale. To my mind, this is a huge missed opportunity.”
Cooke’s non-profit, which he recently rebranded as ReGen250 to accommodate additional, non-China-focused environmental programs, continues to assess options for low-carbon partnerships with China. What elements would a US private sector partner want to support that his organization could strongly endorse? “Alternatively, we can just decide we’re only going to focus on local programs in the Mid-Atlantic to increase access to a greener built environment.”
What about the Department of Energy’s prior interest in cooperation? “I have had some high-level discussions within the Department. The entire group that previously supported the commercial exchange at this high level between the national government and subnational actors, including Eco-Partners and city level groups, is not active right now. It was disappointing to learn that.”
“Despite the challenges in the US-China relationship, subnational initiatives, especially in energy and climate change mitigation solutions, should be encouraged and supported.”
Despite the setbacks, Cooke believes there are still areas for engagement with China regardless of the government in power. One involves people-to-people exchanges, albeit challenging at the present moment given China’s zero-COVID policies. Examples of programs that deserve to survive are the adoption of Chinese children, music (he helped the Philadelphia Orchestra create an artist residency program in China) and artistic exchange, student exchange, and most importantly, business. He believes that the once promising universe of business cooperation has constricted but there still remain spaces outside of sensitive technologies where businesses can and must connect.
As a member of the local ecosystem that support US-China commercial relations, he’s not giving up. Rather, he envisions the different China business-related ecosystems across the United States networking and sharing best practices. He said that one such effort was made recently at a Midwest university, but he expressed some disappointment at the fact that the focus turned out to be on a recently discovered vulnerability involving WeChat. It was a security-led briefing, not the commercially minded dialogue that is needed.
Cooke isn’t ready to walk away from his gift of multi-stakeholder cooperation on climate change or the imperative for non-profits like his to act locally and globally. “Efforts at the subnational level have an important place in helping American companies navigate a complex environment in China. They have a great potential impact because they can organize a well-protected convoy in the place of one isolated boat, big or small.”
“Despite the challenges in the US-China relationship, subnational initiatives, especially in energy and climate change mitigation solutions, should be encouraged and supported.”
(view original article in USCBC’s Fifty States, Fifty Stories series)
On January 13th of this year, President Trump abruptly ordered the termination of the U.S.-China EcoPartnership Program. Seven days before leaving office and without notice, Trump turned the lights off on this 10-year old program, pulling the rug out from under 36 committed and on-going bi-national projects to lower carbon-emissions at global scale.
The Biden Administration is assessing its options for re-vitalizing, in some shape or form, this model of innovative and impactful public-private collaboration to put a dent in global greenhouse gas emissions. This might involve replication of the program to India. ReGen250 is already in the starting gate with a U.S. Mid-Atlantic/State of Maharashtra candidate program should that take shape, as is described on pages 8-9 of our article published last month in the peer-reviewed science journal Environmental Progress and Sustainable Energy.
In the meanwhile, we are pressing forward with unofficial support from the two U.S. Government agencies which ran the EcoPartnership program for ten years — the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Energy — on a purely private and sub-national basis. Our goal in China looking forward is to explore the possibility of expanding from a regional effort (low-carbon collaboration between the U.S.-Mid-Atlantic and the Jing-Jin-Ji (京津冀) region of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei Province to national scale.
How will we accomplish this without the direct support of the U.S. Government? The first step was to confirm the Biden Administration’s encouragement of trade with China in support of Paris Accord goals and then to renew our region-to-region BE Better program partnership with our primary partner in China, the TEDA EcoCenter. These steps were taken last quarter.
The next steps involve exploring prospects for the resumption of the Sino-U.S. Eco Park national-level opportunity with the Green Development League as outlined at the 2020 U.S.-China EcoPartnership Summit. (As described in detail in a prior post, the Green Development League comprises the 36 top-ranked NETDZs throughout China and the GDL Secretary-General is our original EcoPartnership partner (the TEDA EcoCenter and its Director Madame Yuyan Song).
As the exclusive U.S.-based working group member for the proposed Sino-U.S. Eco Park, China Partnership would leverage expertise and input from (1) our region-to-region BE Better program partners (experts in “energy-efficient, smart and healthy built environments” for industrial park users) as well as (2) our U.S.-China BEST Cities partners (with additional constituencies of support to include the U.S.-China Business Council, the U.S. Industry Advisory Board of the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center for Building Energy Efficiency (CERC-BEE), the National Governors Association, and the National League of Cities) in order to identify a comprehensive range of U.S. clean energy technologies and infrastructures from across eastern, central and western regions of the United States to be incorporated into the Sino-U.S. BE Better Eco Park model.
The primary impact of this milestone — CPGP’s formally joining the Green Development League’s working group for design of a Sino-U.S. Eco Park with scalability and replicability to multiple locations throughout China — is literally “to put the U.S. on the map” alongside eight other similar International Eco Parks already functioning in China under PRC Ministry of Commerce auspices. These eight other Eco Park projects represent mostly Sino-European collaborations (e.g., Sino-German Eco Park, Sino-Swiss Zhenjiang Eco Park, Sino-Austrian Eco Park, Sino-Finland Beijing Eco Park) and, to date, none represents a Sino-U.S. collaboration. The CPGP/U.S.-China BEST Cities model was selected, following the March 27, 2018 deadline for application, due to its unique structure of open collaboration designed to introduce U.S. urban clean energy infrastructures and technologies to TEDA and the 35 other top National Economic-technological Development Zones (NETDZ) in the Green Development League.
Using comparables drawn from the realized, real-world experience of the Sino-German Eco Park in Dalian but adjusted to account for the relatively greater GDP of the U.S., a Sino-U.S. BE Better Eco Park leveraging our EcoPartnership’s platform of energy-efficient, smart, healthy built environment and clean manufacturing for industrial park application should reasonably be expected to realize within its initial 5 years:
• As many as 300 signed project agreements (with nearly 60% of those either in production or under construction during that timeframe) representing total investment of 100 billion RMB (approx. USD 15 billion at today’s exchange rate)
• As many as 90 of these projects would be expected to fall in the high-end manufacturing and new energy field with total investment of 67.5 billion RMB (approx. USD 10 billion at today’s exchange rate)
• As many as 80 of these projects would be expected to fall in the advanced services sector with total investment of 35 billion RMB (approx. USD 5 billion at today’s exchange rate)
We are now actively exploring the most practical route for realizing this goal which would involve resumption, post-Trump Administration, of our primary partnership model with (a) TEDA, (b) the 36 GDLs and (c) the 219 NETDZs. Additionally, we have recourse to a secondary partnership model focused on the Jing-Jin-Ji/Xiongan New Area mega-development project.
With respect to the 35-year macroeconomic development effort ushered in by Deng Xiaoping and the Shenzhen and Pudong macro-development projects, Xiongan has both continuities and distinctive differences. One similarity is the size envisioned for the Xiongan New Area -– roughly 50% bigger than Pudong (east of Shanghai) and slightly larger than Shenzhen (to the north of Hong Kong). While Xiongan can be thought of as culminating the coastal progression of these macro-projects–- starting in the south with Shenzhen in the 1980s and moving to the central coast with Pudong in the 1990s -– the final, northern leg of this triad was wobbly at first. President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao initially envisioned the third macro-project leg as being Binhai to the northeast of Tianjin. Post-2012, however, plans for Binhai lost most of their momentum and it was only with President Xi Jinping’s emergence in power that priority was shifted from Binhai to Xiongan. It is more in the discontinuities between Xiongan and the earlier Shenzhen and Pudong macro-projects that Xiongan’s significance can best be understood. The first 30 years of the PRC’s post-Cultural Revolution industrial development was based on a high-carbon model. (This is frequently referred to in China by the phrase 先污染后治理 meaning “pollute first, clean up (or remediate) later”). In contrast, the Xiongan industrial model championed by Xi Jinping focuses on a different set of values for the next 30-year-or-so phase of China’s development in the 21st century: the goals of (1) promoting and putting into practice low-carbon industrialization and sustainability innovations and (2) lessening social inequality and narrowing the gap between rich and poor in shared benefits of industrialization and economic development.
Among the few dozen officially-awarded U.S.-China EcoPartnerships, the PHL-TEDA EcoPartnership is unique in its design as an open platform to facilitate collaboration among businesses, local governments, universities and non-governmental organizations (NGO). On the U.S. side, the platform is anchored by China Partnership of Greater Philadelphia (CPGP, a 501c3 non- profit) and its public sector partner, the Commerce Department of the City of Philadelphia. The first stage of this collaboration has involved bringing sustainable-city-type BE Better technologies (built environment technologies that are more energy-effiient, smarter and healthier) to our EcoPartnership partner in Tianjin (TEDA). Our longer-term objective is to scale these BE Better technologies throughout China through the network of its national-level industrial parks. The initial stage of this scaling effort focuses on China’s northeastern Jing-Jin-Ji region (comprising Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei Province) through collaborations with Green Development League-member National Economic-Technological Development Zones (NETDZ) in Beijing, Tianjin and Langfang. The longer-term goal is to position for second-stage, nation-wide expansion of the BE Better model through the Green Development League’s 36 member- NETDZs nationwide and through the Ministry of Commerce’s national Eco Park program.
On January 13, 2021 — a scant week short of President-elect Biden’s inauguration — President Trump turned off the lights on this decade-old government-to-government program between the U.S. and China to advance climate change mitigation efforts in both countries. Nonetheless, the PHL-TEDA effort was always conceived as a private-sector driven effort and — with continuing legacy support from the U.S. Departments of Energy and State — we are advancing our BE Better program with our TEDA partner in China and exploring possible broadening of the program to the state of Maharashtra in India.
The complete story of where we have been and where we are going is presented in the attached peer-reviewed article published online earlier this month by the Wiley-owned journal Environmental Progress & Sustainable Energy. The print version of the article will be published in the next few weeks.
The full article can be read by clicking here or on the image below:
We encountered headwinds along the way — a fraudulent bid procurement, Trump’s announced intent to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Accord, the Tariff War — but, by tacking and keeping our eye fixed on our destination, we have gotten to calmer waters and now have a following wind. Stay tuned for the next leg of the journey.
President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption drive — known for its signature vow to target both ‘tigers’ (top-level officials) and ‘flies’ (low-level functionaries) — shows no sign of abating. It may even be gathering momentum with the early April announcement that former Politburo Standing Committee member (and security portfolio chief) Zhou Yongkang will be standing trial in Tianjin on charges of bribery, abusing power and disclosing state secrets, This announcement followed a slow-motion public ensnarement of Zhou as, for almost two years, a tightening noose methodically drew in business associates from Zhou’s time with China National Petroleum Corporation, provincial associates from his time as Party Secretary in Sichuan Province, associates from the security establishment and close family members.
As a member of the PSC for five years from 2007-2012, Zhou Yongkang was one of the seven most powerful people in China. Not since the 1976 arrest and subsequent trial of Jiang Qing and the Gang of Four at the end of the Cultural Revolution has such a high-level Chinese official been brought to public trial by the Chinese Communist Party.
The beginning of Zhou Yongkang’s fall is associated with Chongqing, a provincial-level ‘city’ (see Direct Controlled Municipalities) in China’s far west immediately adjoining Sichuan Province and erstwhile power-base for Bo Xilai, Zhou’s protégé. Until the death of British citizen Neil Heywood followed by the failed attempt by Bo’s police chief to seek refuge in the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu (capital of Sichuan Province) followed by the conviction of Bo’s wife on charges of ordering Heywood’s poisoning, it had appeared likely that Zhou would be able to get Bo onto the Standing Committee, thereby protecting his ‘retirement flank’ after stepping down. Bo’s candidacy faltered under the weight of these events just as Xi Jinping was consolidating power and his new Standing Committee taking final shape.
Now that formal charges against Zhou Yongkang have been announced, attention is swinging to Tianjin, another of China’s four Direct Controlled Municipalities (直辖市) and venue for Zhou’s upcoming trial. It is perhaps not surprising that, for months now, the mood in Tianjin — Philadelphia’s Sister City (since original establishment of “Friendship Cities” link in 1980) — has turned decidedly grim. As reported by my friend Tim Weckesser and his fine team of professionals at Sino-Consulting International (SCI):
(begin extract from SCI Report)
The city of Tianjin, our main base in China, recently became a focus in the news media as it fell under scrutiny by Beijing’s powerful anti-graft campaign. This happened not only because of the sudden downfall of Tianjin’s long time police chief, Wu Changshun, based on corruption charges, but also because Tianjin courts have been chosen for the trial Zhou Yongkang, the highest ranking official ever to be charged with corruption. China’s state prosecutors formally charged Zhou, the country’s former top security czar, with accepting large bribes over a long period of time. At the height of his power, Zhou controlled China’s police, spy agencies, court systems, and prosecution offices all across the country. And he wasn’t shy about using these powerful assets to crush dissent in the name of “preserving social stability.”
And now, to add to Tianjin’s notoriety, the city’s former mayor, Dai Xianglong, is “cooperating” in an “investigation”. From 1995 to 2002, before becoming Tianjin’s mayor, Dai was already well-known as the governor of China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC). The investigation, so far, is focused on the vast wealth amassed by Dai’s relatives, not on Dai himself. But this may well be just a tactical move with Dai himself as the real target. This new investigation comes on the heels of the 15 year prison term meted out to Nanjing’s former mayor, Ji Jianye, for corruption. The court found Ji guilty of accepting 11.3m yuan ($1.9m) in bribes between 1999 and 2013, when he was dismissed.
President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign aims at trying to clean up China’s graft-riddled government at every level, with examples being set at the top. And so far, we have to say it is successful. In our experience, government officials as well as executives in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are all keeping their heads down. No big banquets, no gifts – given or received – and strictly limited international travel are basically the norm, at least for now. The question is – will this nationwide campaign eventually help China’s economic development? We hope so. Here is some very recent China market news taken from a variety of public sources.
(end extract from SCI Report)
These then are the dangerous riptides which have been tugging at our PHL-TEDA EcoPartnership‘s Chinese partner, TEDA, since the end of 2014. Given the fathoms-deep nature of Chinese political and legal process, many of these currents have been swirling in hidden depths while the surface continued to appear placid. The U.S. side of our PHL-TEDA EcoPartnership has unmistakably felt the power of these currents, though.
While Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption drive remains immensely popular with the general public, there is a growing concern among many close observers of Chinese politics inside and outside China that these hidden forces can as easily become uncontrollable and destructive as they can be purging and restorative. At the heart of all this is the crucial difference between ‘rule of law’ (with due process, standards of proof, checks and balances, etc) versus ‘rule by law’ (political power plays being managed under a thin veneer of legal process). As Liz Economy wrote in an earlier post on this blog (see “Time for Xi to Reform his Reforms” in Feb. 6, 2015 post):
“Certainly, (Xi’s) anti-corruption campaign has hit its target—hundreds of thousands of them to be exact—and shows little sign of slowing down. He has cast a wide net, leaving little doubt that no sector of society—party, military, business, or other—is completely safe. Still, Xi remains vulnerable to accusations that the campaign is at least partially politically motivated, given that almost half of the senior-most officials arrested are tied in some way to his political opponents, and none of his Fujian or Zhejiang associates have been detained. He might want to bring some transparency to the process: uncertainty and fear of running afoul of some regulation or another are driving many officials to avoid making decisions or taking action.”
The summer’s over and the new work-year has begun. No better way to kick it off than with a reprise of our summer’s big news — China Partnership of Greater Philadelphia and the City of Philadelphia were recognized at the annual high-level U.S.-China talks in Beijing this summer with one of six new U.S.-China EcoPartnerships. Our partner is the Tianjin Economic-technological Development Area or TEDA. Our PHL-TEDA EcoPartnership focuses on funded projects in Tianjin for smartgrid online monitoring systems (OMS), wetlands urban water management (WUWM), and green building energy efficiency (GBEE).
Back row: Philadelphia Delegates Terry Cooke, CPGP (4th from left) and Gary Biehn, White & Williams (2nd from left)
Front row (from right to left) China’s State Councilor Jiechi Yang , Sec of State Kerry, Amb. Baucus & Counselor to the President, John Podesta
In other posts to follow, I’ll share some more background on what the five-year old U.S.-China EcoPartnership program is (and why it matters), give thumbnails on the other five EcoPartnership awardees in 2014, and provide a listing of the twenty-four active EcoPartners since the inauguration of the program in 2014.
In the meanwhile, here are links publicizing our new three-year PHL-TEDA EcoPartnership:
U.S. State Department Press Release
Secretary Kerry remarks at July 10th EcoPartnership signing ceremony
U.S. Government website for the U.S.-China EcoPartnership program
Official photo from U.S. Department of State
City of Philadelphia Press Release (on City’s blog)
City of Philadelphia Press Release (on City Facebook page)
The China Partnership of Greater Philadelphia (CPGP) is a non-profit organization that promotes collaboration on public/private cleantech initiatives between Philadelphia and the People’s Republic of China. We operate on the principles of openness, inclusivity, and transparency in order to maximize engagement from all relevant stakeholders throughout the Philadelphia area. Our objective is to accelerate job creation, attract investment, and support cleantech business incubation in Greater Philadelphia through strategic linkages to leading Chinese corporate, governmental, and academic organizations. CPGP leverages both established and emerging programs and initiatives including:
- The new $129 million Greater Philadelphia Innovation Cluster (GPIC) for energy efficient buildings, funded primarily by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
- The City of Philadelphia’s 30-year old official Sister City relationship with Tianjin, China. Tianjin, the fastest-growing Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in China, also has a national mandate for clean energy leadership under China’s 11th and 12th Fiver-Year Plans
- The $150 million U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center (CERC) program, with a dedicated building energy efficiency initiative led by Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL) in the US and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development (MOHURD) in China
CPGP harnesses the Greater Philadelphia region’s broad base of resources and expertise to create synergy between regional and national initiatives in both countries through a single innovative program focused on cleantech jobs, business development, and investment. To support these goals, we have developed plans for:
- Export & investment initiatives including an open-consortium incubator (involving government, academia, business, and related associations) planned for the Philadelphia Navy Yard and leading to a world-class public demonstration facility
- A CEO Summit entitled, “Greater Philadelphia & China: Toward a Sustainable Future,” planned for the spring 2012 focused on four areas: carbon finance, water, green building, and clean energy
- An official U.S. State Department city EcoPartnership with Tianjin, China
- The expansion of our already extensive network of universities and think tanks on the local, regional, national, and international levels.
The Partnership includes members from a wide range of Philadelphia area stakeholders. Business: Capitol Project Partners, The China Business Network, Cozen O’Connor, Delmarva Group LLC, Deloitte, Deutsche Bank, Ecolibrium Group, GreenWorld Capital LLC, HSBC, KSW Consulting, Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp, VerdeStrategy, White and Williams LLP. Government: City of Philadelphia, International Visitors Council. Academic: Academy of Natural Sciences, Drexel University, Penn International Sustainability Association, Temple University, University of Pennsylvania’s T.C. Chan Center. Associations: Global China Connection, Greater Philadelphia China Center for Culture and Commerce. (Note: All work conducted by these organizations is done by individuals on a pro-bono basis.)
For further information, please contact Deputy Executive Director Nora Sluzas at nsluzas@post.harvard.edu
A personal note:
The Greater Philadelphia region stands on twin thresholds — as the new national innovation center for research and commercialization of energy efficient buildings in the U.S. and, potentially, as an economic partner to China in this priority sector under that country’s new 12th Five Year Plan (2011-5). What’s the bottom line for the region if it manages to sync with the speed and scale of China’s transformation of its commercial and residential building infrastructure? Delivering for our region the extraordinary levels of foreign direct investment (FDI), high-value exports, and jobs which Chicago secured six weeks ago through Hu Jintao’s visit.
What’s needed?
• First, the context: The article below describes the state of play – involving both market opportunity and political risk – for the U.S./China clean energy sector at the time of Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to Washington DC in January 2011: Clean Energy: U.S.-China Cooperation and Competition (The full collection is available for download at FPRI )
• Second, the megaphone: The China Business Network is in the final count-down for launching its Green Development Channel. Check out here to see how the site is looking on the launch-pad and how it will help amplify the message about opportunities for clean energy engagement with China once it is launched.
• Third, the springboard: There are some exciting events upcoming in the region this year focusing on China, Tianjin and 21st c. energy opportunity. Events in the early summer (June) and fall (Sept-Oct) will be announced soon. Stay tuned.
• Finally, the moment: As I’ve described fully in my forthcoming book Sustaining U.S.-China Clean Energy Cooperation (Woodrow Wilson Center/Kissinger Institute), the action with China clean energy is now moving from politically-driven Washington D.C. to commercially-driven regional economies – principally, Greater Philadelphia & the Bay Area (for energy-efficient buildings) , Ann Arbor/Detroit (electric vehicles) and West Virginia (clean coal). It’s a good time for Greater Philadelphia — a prime beneficiary of this trend — to focus on this opportunity now that our economy is strengthening. My book provides, hopefully, a clear and straight-forward read — just 120 pages — of the current landscape of U.S./China clean energy cooperation and competition. It gives equal attention to technology developments, investment opportunity/risk, and policy dynamics.
These twin, intertwined strands of opportunity — regionally-based energy innovation connected to global market opportunity through China — are my full focus. My goal is to provide a clear and concise ‘wiring diagram’ of the regional, national and global ‘connection points’ associated with this opportunity. My partners in this effort are The China Business Network, The T.C. Chan Center for Building Simulation & Energy Studies (UPenn/Tsinghua), The Foreign Policy Research Institute, The Greater Philadelphia China Center for Culture & Commerce, Gerson Lehrman Group, Capitol Project Partners, and GC3 Strategy.
I welcome your involvement and support.
What are eco-cities in China? Why are so many popping up in China’s second-tier urban locations? What are the main drivers for this trend and what makes a sound eco-city development project or zone? Finally, what opportunities exist for foreign companies? TCBN Green Channel Editor Terry Cooke interviews Piper Stover, strategic advisor of China Dynamics, LLC, on China’s eco-cities initiative.
Background
China policy on eco-cities:
• The 11th 5 Year Plan included goals of lowering energy consumption per unit of GDP, specifically, energy consumption per unit of GDP should have decreased by 20 percent in 2010 compared to 2005.
•The draft for the 12th Five-Year Program (2011-2015), with additional policy overseeing eco-city development, will be finalized by China’s National People’s Congress in March, 2011.
China Eco-cities in the news:
Eco-city development projects have been announced in over 100 cities across China, however not all have been officially endorsed by China government regulatory authorities. Tongi University has conducted research citing nearly 170 self-proclaimed eco-cities.
China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) launched a national low-carbon province and low-carbon city experimental project in Beijing in August, 2010. The project is being implemented in five provinces: Guangdong, Liaoning, Hubei, Shaanxi and Yunnan, and in eight cities: Tianjin, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Xiamen, Hangzhou, Nanchang, Guiyang and Baoding.
Notable China Eco-city or Sustainable Community projects also include:
• Tangshan Caofeidian International Eco-city
• Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city
• Chongming Dongtan Eco-city (currently inactive)
• Shenzhen Guangming Eco-city, Guangdong Province
• Yangzhou Eco-city, Jiangsu Province
• Nanjing Eco-city, Jiangsu Province (several eco-cities and eco-business parks are under development)
• Huaibei Eco-city, Anhui Province
• Langfang Eco-city, China (outside of Beijing)
• Mengtougou Eco-city (outside of Beijing)
• Meixi Lake Eco-city, Changsha, Hunan Province (there are several additional eco-cities planned for this region)
• Rongcheng Eco-town and Weihai City, Shandong Province
• Huangbaiyu (currently abandoned)
• Chengdu, Sichuan
• Xiamen Eco-city “retrofit”
• Guiyang, Guizhou
• “US-China Eco-city Initiative” between the US Department of Energy (DOE)and China’s Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development (MOHURD). Both sides are developing guidelines and policies to support the integration of energy efficiency and renewable energy into city design and operation. January, 2011.
Research and policy development
• Tongi University has conducted research citing over 160 eco-cities in China. UNEP-Tongji University Institute of Environment for Sustainable Development
Useful Eco-city Case Studies:
• Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city Project, released by World Bank on January 11, 2011
• Asian Development Bank’s overview on Eco-cities in China, “Eco-City Development: A New and Sustainable Way Forward?: November 2010
2011 Eco-city Events:
• The World Eco-city Summit, Montreal 2011, held August 22-26, 2011
www.ecocity2011.com
Interview Transcript
Terry Cooke: This is Terry Cooke, editor of TCBN’s Green Development Channel. I’m here with Piper Lounsbury Stover. Piper’s been active in China for the last 20 years working with companies on the ground. On recent years she’s had involvement with a number of eco-city projects. Piper, welcome.
Piper Lounsbury Stover: Thanks, Terry.
TC: We’re talking about eco-cities in China. For starters, can you just let us know what eco-cities are and why they seem to be popping up at a fast rate?
PLS: Sure. “Eco” – meaning ecologically sustainable cities. I think in the late – well, early to mid-90s, the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection started to develop these ‘eco-city’ guidelines, which were really a series of key performance indicators (KPIs) to try to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to conserve energy and water resources in several cities across China, starting as pilot project, and now expanding to hundreds of cities.
The main drivers to this development – China is facing massive migration right now. Almost 50% of China’s population currently lives in over 600 cities in China. Nearly 300 million will move from rural areas to Chinese cities in the next ten years, so this is a massive influx of people and China’s going to have to invest up to $3.6 trillion in urban infrastructure to handle that migration by 2020.
So with that, there’s going to be a growth of 2nd tier cities to handle the migration. And with that growth there is going to be continued strain on resources. So to conserve energy needs China’s has to implement policies. China will be increasing energy needs by 150% by 2020 and will have water issues. Water reclamation and water policies are going to be important because China, for its populations, has only a fourth of the world’s average water per capita. So it’s a big issue that the China Daily started reporting on in 2005 or 2006; we are seeing more and more domestic reports on water issues.
TC: And currently there’s a drought right now.
PLS: Exactly. So to address this from a policy perspective, the 11th Five Year Plan and the 12th Five Year Plan have advocated objectives to promote sustainability in these eco-cities. And that means opportunity – opportunity for companies, and certainly land and real estate developers to try to meet the challenge.
TC: Well we’ll get to that investment and commercial opportunity in just a moment. Before we do, Piper, could you just say a word about where these eco-cites are which are the biggest?
PLS: Sure. I mentioned the 2nd tier cities earlier. I think it’s important because when we think of the 1st tier cities in China we think of Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, areas, but these 2nd tier cities are growing, and provides opportunities for real estate development that did not exist previously. The biggest ones right now are occurring in these 2nd tier areas. We have two greenfield projects that are the largest – 30 sq km areas. One in is Tangshan, called the Caofeidian International Eco-city. I believe that is an eco-city in coordination with the government of Sweden. There is the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city – that’s a 30 sq km also sq area in Tianjin. And then there was the Kingdom Chongming Dongtan Eco-city. That was a really big eco city planned for an island off of Shanghai that hasn’t really gone anywhere, as I do not think the investment and the original plan worked out. While those are the obvious biggest, I have a whole list of others that I’d be glad to post after the call, including some in Shenzhen, in Jiangsu Province, in Anhui Province. There are many.
TC: Ok Piper. And you were just talking about the real estate development angle. You mentioned three premier projects, two of which seem to be moving forward well and one that seems to be stalled. From a project development and investment standpoint, what makes a sound eco-city project? What are the signs investors should look for?
PLS: Sure, there are probably five signs that I would look for if I were looking at a project. One would, obviously, be significant local and central government level support. You want to make sure the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) or the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (MOHURD) are backing these projects with key performance indicators approved by these two organizations to make sure they’re on track with national standards.
And of course the land acquisition. That’s important. You want to make sure that these projects are not encroaching on farmland or other areas where inhabitants are living, and certainly converting non-arable wasteland has been one way to look at better utilizing land.
TC: Just to clarify that one, Piper, there’s a risk that if the local government has misappropriated land there would be political risk attached to that.
PLS: Certainly. That is one key issue, but also it is a higher cost in some areas to actually to move people. It’s very costly. So for those two reasons it is important to find out how the land was acquired and how it will be used (for the whole system).
And then there is location. You want to find out how far away these eco-cites are from an old city center – whether transportation is going to be convenient or not. Some of these eco-cities are located very close to rail lines or high-speed rails planned for the future, so that of course would be of interest to me.
The fourth and fifth would include: at what speed would the purchasing power of these cities develop? I know for 2nd tier cities this can be questionable. You want to make sure the economy will continue to grow, and you want growth predictions to be based on sound plans.
The fifth would be competition in the same area. If your company is looking at either investing or moving into one of these eco-cities, what is the competition around you? What human capital talents exist? And what are either other cities nearby or neighboring counties also doing to attract similar industries, or even your own competitors?
TC: Good. Those are key points for an investor to keep their eye on. What about the opportunity more broadly, for foreign businesses across the board to participate in and benefit from this trend of eco-cities throughout China?
PLS: Certainly with an opportunity to pursue either a green field investment or rehabilitation of some cities, opportunities exist for green building, green technology companies, green energy – renewable wind, solar, CHP, and other types of renewable energy technologies, as well as water and waste technologies. For all of these eco-cities. With already nearly 170 of these so-called eco-cities popping up around China, imagine the opportunity for green technologies in each of these cities.
So that is one area: products and services in the sustainable building sector. The other would be finance and investment opportunities – for R&D and start-ups. I could imagine incubators/ R&D facilities established in some of these areas outside of larger cities, depending on the location in China.
And then third – knowledge-based economy opportunities: in new media, computer networking, IT/ back office outsourcing-types of IT services, and problem solving and consulting. Certainly with the growing concern that China has scarce resources, there is a natural and understandable inclination to try to move from industrialization and heavy machinery/heavy energy and water-using industries to higher-value, knowledge-based services. The eco-cites would be targets to offer or create such knowledge-based service opportunities for companies looking for such.
TC: Piper you commented on the investment outlook and also the commercial opportunities. What about the durability of this trend in China from a business standpoint?
PLS: I would say that certainly we all understand the top-down policies either promulgated from the 11th or 12th Five Year Plan (to be reviewed in March 2011), are central to understanding where growth will happen, and that funding will be diverted to these eco-cites to make them a success, so can trust in that. However, at the same time we need to think about the greater economy and health at the local or regional level where these eco-cites are located, as well as the national level.
And because eco-cities are a more expensive operation to create (to meet stringent KPIs), you’ve got some very sensitive systems that do need management and attention. There is a danger that some shortcuts would be made to save money. I’ve heard one story in the past couple years where in an eco-city in a more remote location, the energy was considered expensive and so the lights were basically turned out during the winter to meet KPIs. In general, looking at the five or six points I mentioned earlier about making sure you’re researching the right eco-city and ensuring it is in a location that is sound and associated with strong economic growth, things should be okay.
TC: Piper earlier in our talk you identified three particular projects and then ticked off the names and a couple others that you will post to the TCBN website. One project that I did not hear you mention was the Chicago-Shanghai Eco-city agreement. Could you tell us a little bit about that particular agreement?
PLS: Well it’s a bit of a different animal, but I’m glad you mentioned that. I think, dating back to the Clinton administration, there was an effort to create a more cooperative information exchange, particularly between the DOE and China’s counterparts. I think that in the 2010 September timeframe, the DOE announced a new Chicago-Shanghai Eco-city. It’s basically a way for the two cities to trade best practices and to work together to develop standards and to help each other understand what could be possible in cities located throughout not only China but also the United States. So I think in this effort, if I’m not mistaken, there are 7 or 8 cities in the US and in China that may be paired together in this US-China-India Integrated Cities Initiative that is being coordinated by the US Department of Energy via the Brookhaven National Lab. It will help not only create more transparency and understanding of some of the standards that could evolve, but also to provide more of a quality control so that companies can have a bit of political cover in understanding which eco-cites are going to be considered sound and which are not.
TC: All right, well time’s drawing to a close, but in closing, Piper, let me just ask whether there’s just one project you’d like to highlight as a case study?
PLS: You know, in some of the research that I’ve done, I found one report to be very useful, which has made me think that this particular eco-city could be a success: the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city. A case study written by the World Bank, or I believe prepared based on a grant application that the Tianjin Eco-city had submitted to the World Bank. It is on the web and available to the public, and I think the study is the most recent comprehensive report I’ve found on eco-cities in China.
TC: Well great! Piper, thank you for your thoughts and your insights. We’ll possibility try to get back to you in a year or so and see how the progress with eco-cities has been.
PLS: Sounds great, Terry. Thanks. And I will post those cities for everyone to take a look at.
TC: Thank you. Bye bye.
TCBN’s Green Development Channel Editor Terry Cooke is the Founder of GC3 Strategy Inc., helping U.S. technology and investment firms since 2002 to create and sustain commercial partnerships in Greater China and India. >>See more on his profile>>
Piper Lounsbury Stover is the Principal for China Dynamics LLC, based in Vermont. She has nearly 20 years of experience in China business and policy.
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