midterm 3 Flashcards
- What are China’s “dual carbon” goals?
Goal 1:
Definition:
Date:
Goal 2:
Definition:
Date:
Goal 1: Peak emissions
Definition: highest emission a country will reach, afterwards it will decline
Date: 2030
Goal 2: net zero
Definition: emission produce = emission absorbed/removed
Date: 2060
- To the frustration of climate activists and experts, what level did China leave unclear amidst its pledges?
What level peak emissions would be
- China’s explicit and firm privileging of what has given some analysts doubt about China’s commitment to a swift energy transition?
Energy security
- T/F. According to estimates from the Chinese Academy of Engineering, coal demand in China will peak in 2025, China will peak its emissions in 2027, and very likely reach net zero before 2060.
T
- China’s rapid advances in solar, wind, and battery technologies have been astonishing. China’s current share of global manufacturing capacity now stands at (50, 66, 88)
% for solar modules
% for wind turbines
% for battery storage.
66% for solar modules
50% for wind turbines
88% for battery storage.
- T/F. While wind turbines still generate far more power than solar panels over a year, solar panels have overtaken wind turbines as the world’s biggest renewables market due to dominance in its scale of production.
T
- T/F. Both solar and onshore wind are cheaper on a new-build basis than gas and coal.
T
- T/F. China built more offshore wind turbines in 2021 than all other countries did for the last five years.
T
- Briefly, explain how the development of the renewable technology sector illustrates the evolution of China’s manufacturing sector.
Foreign firms (cheap labors) –> advanced manufacturing high tech domestic firms
- Briefly, explain how China’s desire for energy security encourages its development of renewable energy sources and technologies.
Less dependency on other countries for energy resources
Short term, security of fossil fuel
Long term, with more alternative energy, less dependency on other countries
- China wants to become the S_____________ A_____________ of renewables.
Saudi Arabia
- How does renewable energy development put a different light on China’s efforts at territorial expansion?
Territorial disputes are renewable energy related, mostly wind
- What difficult choice do many foreign countries face regarding China’s renewable technologies?
Undermines their own development for these sectors
Short term gain, long term loss
- What city in the 1990s and 2000s became the “air pollution capital of the world”?
Beijing
- Briefly, explain why March 2013 became the turning point for air pollution in China.
Xi jinping come to power, taking on the air pollution issue
- Which of the following were methods used by China to reduce its air pollution? (mark all that apply)
Set up a nationwide system of monitoring stations
New government regulations restricting car and truck use and emissions
Massive state subsidies to develop electric vehicle production and purchase
Shut down some coal mines and plants and put restrictions on the operations of ones still in use
Financing for companies to shift towards more energy efficient operations
All
- T/F. Though not a perfect rule, in general a country’s air quality gets considerably worse as it emerges out of poverty through industrialization, but then improves once it becomes affluent and able to afford regulations and remedies.
T
- A________________ is the planting of trees and vegetation in places where there previously weren’t any.
Afforestation
- List three of the benefits of China’s tree-planting programs.
i. Help with soil erosion
ii. Increase in biodiversity
iii. Screening places from sandstorm
- T/F. China has been conducting the largest tree-planting project in human history.
T
- List three problems with China’s Great Green Wall program.
i. Low to share information of success rate
ii. Poor planting, poor choices of the plant
iii. Outbreaks of beetles
- T/F. Despite criticisms and setbacks, China continues with its traditional tree-planting methods and has refused to adopt more nature-based approaches which scientists have argued would work better, nor has China made attempts to better integrate local communities in planting and conservation efforts.
F
- T/F. The BRI includes tree-planting initiatives, including the creation of “green economic belts” that will link China with several countries in Central and West Asia.
T
- China is currently conducting a campaign to cover 40% of 7 out of 10 of its cities with what?
Green spaces
- P_______ P__________ are a key means by which China uses its administrative state to spur innovation.
Pilot projects
- Sponge-cities are a N_______-B_______ approach, in contrast to conventional G________ I___________, and the programs seek to create green spaces that S________, R________, and C________ water as it moves through a city.
Nature-Based
Grey Infrastructure
Slow, Retain, Clean
- What factor do some analysts credit as the key to China becoming the largest electric vehicle market in the world?
More effective in lower the price of EV
- T/F. In addition to private vehicles, China has launched major initiatives to electrify its fleets of taxis, logistical trucking, and city buses.
T
- List three of the benefits of China’s electric vehicle revolution.
i. Reduce carbon emission
ii. less dependent on foreign source
iii. Drive company development and economy
- T/F. While China has massively invested in and rapidly expanded its high speed rail network over the last decade, it is still well behind the US in total km of high speed track.
F
- T/F. While China’s high speed rail industry initially depended on technology transfers from foreign firms, it is now driven by domestic firms at the forefront of world in terms of advanced speeds, signaling systems, driverless technology, and construction times.
T
- In addition to its myriad economic benefits, what two other benefits does China seek through its high-speed rail network?
i. A symbol of a country’s development
ii. A tool of social cohesion
iii. Growing ties of geopolitical influence
- List three key features of a China’s Eco-Cities.
i. High density
ii. Electrify transportations
iii. Advanced water system/ urban farming
- What country is a partner with China on its highest profile Eco-City project in Tianjin?
Singapore
- T/F. While China’s Eco-Cities projects have been much criticized (e.g. excessive expense, use as propaganda and marketing tools, questionable effectiveness, and hard time attracting residents), they have become some of the most influential blueprints for the future of sustainable urbanism.
T
- (a) What does ETS stand for? And (b) what sector does China’s initial implementation of its ETS apply to?
Emissions trading scheme
Power sector
- What are China’s two main goals in its ETS?
Drive down carbon emission
Spur development of new green technologies
- China is currently pushing ahead in decarbonizing what sector that is very-hard-to-decarbonize but essential for renewables?
Steel sector
- The IMF estimates that China’s carbon price must be near $50 a ton for it to effectively drive down carbon emissions (carbon’s current price in European markets is $90); China’s current carbon price is about $____.
$9
- Besides price, are two of the issues/criticisms/worries about China’s ETS?
i. Rely on self-reporting
ii. Corruption of monitoring, state own firms
iii. Ets not expanding as they plan
- T/F. Despite China’s overall dominance of the market, CATL, the world’s leading battery maker, is an American company located in Detroit, Michigan.
F
- T/F. China’s EV market makes up over half of all EV sales globally.
T
- What is ‘the first major reason why China’s companies were able to develop their EV battery’?
Huge amount of government support
- What were the three big motivations for developing an EV industry?
i. Energy independence
ii. Air pollution
iii. Can’t compete in already establish internal combustion engine market, can compete in new emerging EV market
- Which of the following does the video list as among the policies the Chinese government used to supported the development of the EV sector? (mark all that apply)
Subsidies for each sale
Cheap land leases
Cheap loans from state-owned banks
R&D spending
Tax breaks
Contracts to electrify bus and taxi fleets
Discounts, parking, lane advantages, tax breaks for consumers
All
- To protect their own battery industry, when foreign firms wanted to sell their EVs in the China market, what policy did the Chinese government adopt?
Must use Chinese made batteries
- What milestone in EV sales was reached in China in 2024?
Over 50% of new car sales
- Control over what is the second way that Chinese battery companies became dominant?
Control over the supply chain (materials)
- T/F. While China dominates the global mining of many of the critical materials for batteries, it is currently dependent on the advanced refineries of first world countries and regions like the US and EU.
F
- T/F. China has a 70% or over market dominance of the four main components of the EV battery cell.
T
- BYD, a major EV producer in China, started as what kind of company in the 1990s?
Batteries for electronics
- T/F. Historically, the major competitor to China in battery making was not the US, but Japan and Korea.
T
- What policy rule did the Biden administration pass in an attempt to limit China’s market dominance in batteries?
Chinese components cannot be over 50%
- T/F. China is not only the world’s leader in EV battery manufacturing, but has now become the epicenter of EV battery innovation.
T
- What is the significance of LFP batteries?
Less critical materials
Smaller and more powerful
- What are the three ‘concerns’ expressed about China’s EV battery industry?
i. Government support is unfair economic practice
ii. Human rights of abuse
iii. Environmental concerns
- T/F. In Spain, many people did not get the alerts sent by authorities at all or until it was too late, with many people driving or walking in suddenly flooding streets and underground garages that became death traps.
T
- Provide three of ways climate change may have contributed to the Spain floods.
i. Air warmer holds more precipitation
ii. The movement of Jetstream, pouring water to areas that not acceptable for this type of levels
iii. The Mediterranean water is very hot, getting warmer
- What climate change related problem had Spain been suffering from in 2022 and 2023?
Drought
- T/F. When the Spanish royals visited the site of the flooding, the people welcomed them and cheered with hope, since the royals were showing they cared and things would get better quickly.
F
- As a GHG, methane is _____ times more potent than carbon over the short term.
4 10 40 80
80
- T/F. In 2020, the growth rate in methane emissions doubled in a sudden, sharp spike upward, baffling scientists.
T
- What has a group of scientists now identified as the ‘culprit’ of the sudden spike in methane emissions?
Microbes
- How did scientists determine that the increases in methane emissions were not from fossil fuels (which, to be clear, are a major emitter of methane!)?
Methane from fossil fuels is heavier than those from microbes
They weight the methane
- Scientists fear that warming temperatures and rising methane emissions might be forming a dangerous F____________ L___________.
Feedback loop
- Describe the possibly ‘vicious cycle’ between warming temperatures and rising methane emissions.
Warming –> more methane, warm weather, permafrost –> warming
- T/F. Some good news related to methane emissions is that, if wetlands as part of a natural cycle are releasing methane faster than ever, scientists say that we do not have to push as hard to curb methane from the sources humans can control, such as cows, agriculture and fossil fuels.
F
- Over 100 countries have collectively pledged to reduce their methane emissions by ____% by the year ______ from 2020 levels.
30%, 2030
- T/F. Lahore, home to 14 million people, and only 25km from the border with India, recently suffered its worst air pollution day in history, and currently the worst levels on Earth.
T
- What Indian city frequently trades places with Lahore as the most air polluted city in the world?
Delhi
- Give three causes of India and Pakistan’s current bad air quality.
i. Coal fired power plants
ii. Farmers burn agriculture waste
iii. Cold air slow down wind, air pollution stays above the same area
- T/F. Indians affected by the air pollution can lose up to 8.5 years off their life, according to a study by the University of Chicago.
T
- Rich Indians and Pakistanis with access to what make the smog issue an example of ‘climate apartheid’ according to climate activists in the region?
Air purifier
- T/F. The Indian government, in a surprise to many, responded enthusiastically to overtures from Pakistani officials to conduct some ‘smog and climate diplomacy’ between the two traditionally bitter rivals.
T
- Which of the following is true about Indonesia’s coal sector? (mark all that apply)
Opened up the third most coal-fired power capacity in the world, behind India and China.
Coal is 60% of Indonesia’s electricity generation
World’s largest exporter of coal
Accounts for 75% of al planned coal power construction in South and Southeast Asia
All
- Provide three of the main reasons that coal has become so central to Indonesia’s economy.
i. Indonesia is poor, it uses coal to fuel the economy
ii. Incentives to use coal for industries
iii. Political lobbing and corruptions of the leader
- T/F. While many climate activists, scientists, and policymakers criticize Indonesia’s increased coal
usage, there is a widespread acknowledgement that Indonesia has passed significant environmental
safeguards that protect its forest, water, and air from the effects of coal mining and burning.
F
- What problem does coal burning make much worse in Jakarta?
Air pollution
- Briefly explain the two ways that the coal sector in Indonesia prevents it from developing a renewables sector.
- Government giving money to coal sector which could be use for renewable sector
- Lower price of coal compare to renewables
- Besides bountiful rainforests, Indonesia also has large and critically important mangrove forests and peat swamps. What climate functions do both of these serve?
Mangrove Forests:
Peat Swamps:
Mangrove Forests: costal erosion protection
Peat Swamps: carbon sinks, huge amount of carbon in peat sources
- How much of Indonesia’s original forest cover remains?
Half
- What crop is the largest driver of deforestation in Indonesia?
Palm oil
- (a) In addition to the plantations, timber, and mining industries, local communities are often
responsible for deforestation in Indonesia due to what farming technique? And (b) what additional
problem does this cause?
a. Slash and burn
b. Fire often get out of control, leading to forest fire
- What climate and population related program of the Indonesian government is exacerbating rural
tensions over resources?
Transmigration program
- List four costs of deforestation and fires in Indonesia.
i. Lose of carbon sink, sink to source
ii. Air pollution, affect public health
iii. It’s a source of geopolitical tension
iv. Increase the risk of spread of disease, pushing animal to human
- How does Singapore illustrate how Indonesia’s forest dynamics often become a geopolitical issue?
Fire break out leading to smoke cloud spreading to other countries affecting air quality
- (a) How many people live in Indonesia? And (b) how many live in Jakarta (the greater metropolitan
area)?
a. 270 million
b. 30 million