China’s leaders, we are told, are leading us to planetary carbon salvation. For a reality check, consult a new report by Patricia Adams, the executive director of Probe International. Tom Switzer for the Sydney Morning Herald.
The Paris summit: A colossal waste of time
So far, all the pledges from all the countries put together would scarcely budge the needle on the great big global thermostat. This opinion piece for the Globe and Mail quotes Probe International’s new study on China’s climate policy and energy needs.
China puts rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang on trial as police scuffle with diplomats and protesters
As President Xi’s crackdown on dissent continues, China’s most prominent human rights lawyer awaits sentencing on the “vague charges” leveled against him. Meanwhile, many of the 200 human rights lawyers authorities rounded up in July, in a major nationwide sweep, remain behind bars. The Los Angeles Times reports.
China: Novelists against the state
Writers can help the world adjust to impossible facts and injured societies to heal but, for Chinese writers, censorship makes exploring “the fate of humanistic values in post-Mao society” problematic. How can authors be candid and avoid punishment?
China’s wind waste
The biggest build-out of wind power “we’ll probably see anywhere” in the world, yet nearly one out of every five wind turbines in China isn’t spinning. Apart from wasting clean energy, this has meant China’s wind power industry has lost more than a billion dollars in the first half of this year alone. Rob Schmitz for Marketplace reports.
The truth about China
Why Beijing will resist demands for abatement. A new report by Patricia Adams.
China’s climate power game
China’s Communist party won’t curb the country’s CO2 emissions – doing so could lead to their overthrow.
China won’t cut back on its CO2 emissions
China won’t commit to curbing its fossil fuel use; instead, it will squeeze the West for billions in climate subsidies. That’s the conclusion of a study released today by economist Patricia Adams of Toronto-based Probe International for U.K.-based Global Warming Policy Foundation.
A year as a wife
A profile of Meng Qun, wife of prominent civil rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, detained in May 2014 for attending a Tiananmen protest discussion.
China releases two NGO activists ‘on bail’ ahead of president’s US trip
Guo Yushan and He Zhengjun, detained former members of the influential Beijing Transition Institute (now shuttered), have been released on bail by Chinese authorities. Some analysts see the move as a symbolic concession to US concerns over Beijing’s human rights record. What might their release mean going forward? Radio Free Asia reports.
Uncivil society
A new draft law spooks foreign not-for-profit groups working in China.
Tianjin and China’s industrial calamities
This terrific opinion piece by Xiao Shu, a former columnist for China’s outspoken Southern Weekly newspaper, gets right to the point in saying the country’s “calamitous cycle of man-made disasters is the direct result of a dysfunctional government.” The answer: Give power back to the people.
In China’s crackdown on rights lawyers, big law says little
Chinese authorities are well aware how governments and bar organizations around the world feel about their fierce crackdown on human-rights lawyers. But the country’s commercial lawyers—including international firms active in China—have been relatively quiet. Why so? The American Lawyer reports.
China’s gloomy future
China’s increasing financial and economic assertiveness suggests its star is only set to rise on the world stage and that has prompted some major swagger on the part of its leaders. Swagger the nation’s long-term view doesn’t warrant. Commentary by John Robson.
The impending dam disaster in the Himalayas
Two of the most populous nations—China and India—are building hundreds of dams in a violently active geologic zone.
Probe International 