China plays a pivotal role in the international community's fight against climate change. However, understanding which officials and departments drive China’s ambition, and how climate is prioritized in China’s bureaucracy, are crucial to benchmarking China’s climate progress. A new report, Climate Change in China’s Governance: Agenda, Agents, and International Collaboration, by Guoguang Wu, Senior Fellow on Chinese Politics at the Asia Society Policy Institute's (ASPI) Center for China Analysis (CCA) explores these questions.

Please join us for this important discussion moderated by Somini Sengupta from the New York Times where Guoguang Wu, CCA Senior Fellow on Chinese Politics; Li Shuo, Director of the ASPI China Climate Hub; and Deborah Seligsohn, Senior Associate with the Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Assistant Professor of Political Science at Villanova University, discuss the conclusions from the report, China’s domestic climate agenda, its role in international climate diplomacy, and U.S.-China bilateral climate diplomacy. Deepali Khanna, Vice President, Asia Regional Office, Rockefeller Foundation, will give opening remarks. 

This project was made possible with support from The Rockefeller Foundation. The findings and conclusions contained within are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect positions or policies of The Rockefeller Foundation.

This event is being held alongside the COAL + ICE exhibition and series of programs at Asia Society, Feb. 13-Aug. 11, 2024, designed to provoke thought and action on climate change. Galleries will be open from 10:00 a.m. on June 18 and museum admission will be included for holders of event tickets.

Breakfast will be served from 8:30 a.m. 

SPEAKERS

Guoguang Wu is Senior Fellow on Chinese Politics at the Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis. With a Ph.D. in politics from Princeton University, now he is a Senior Research Scholar at the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions, Stanford University. His research specializes in Chinese politics and comparative political economy, including, in China studies, elite politics, national political institutions and policy making mechanisms, transition from communism, the politics of development, China’s search for its position in the world, and, in comparative political economy, transition of capitalism with globalization, the emergence of capitalism in comparative perspectives, and the worldwide rise of the economic state. He is the author of four books, which include two major research monographs: Globalization against Democracy: The Political Economy of Capitalism after Its Global Triumph (Cambridge University Press, 2017), and China’s Party Congress: Power, Legitimacy, and Institutional Manipulation (Cambridge University Press, 2015).

Li Shuo is the Director of China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI). He is also a Senior Fellow with ASPI's Center for China Analysis. His work focuses on analyzing China’s environmental and energy policies and supporting the international community’s engagement with China’s climate agenda. Prior to ASPI, Li Shuo has more than a decade of experience in United Nations environmental negotiations, including on climate change, biodiversity, ocean, plastic pollution, and ozone.

Deborah Seligsohn is a Senior Associate with the Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Villanova University, a Woodrow Wilson Institute China Fellow, and an Associate at the Center for the Study of Contemporary China at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on Chinese politics; U.S.-China relations; and public health, energy, and environmental politics in China and India. Prior to receiving her Ph.D. in Political Science and International Affairs from the University of California San Diego in 2018, she worked in both the nonprofit and government sectors on public health, science, climate, and the environment. From 2003 to 2007, she served as the environment, science, technology, and health counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, and from 2007 to 2012 she served as the Beijing-based principal adviser to the World Resources Institute’s China Energy and Climate Program.

Somini Sengupta (moderator) is the international climate reporter on the New York Times climate team. She has spent many years as an international correspondent. As a reporter, she led the NYT coverage of West Africa and South Asia. Somini has worked in more than 50 countries, including 10 conflict zones. She also covered international diplomacy as the United Nations correspondent and been the lead writer of the Climate Forward newsletter. She is the author of the book, The End of Karma: Hope and Fury Among India's Young, published by W.W. Norton.

Deepali Khanna (opening remarks) is the Vice President, Asia Regional Office, Rockefeller Foundation. As The Rockefeller Foundation’s chief representative in Asia, Deepali Khanna oversees efforts to amplify the Foundation’s impact and initiatives to make opportunities universal and sustainable. She leads the efforts of the Asia Regional Office team to build and sustain networks with different institutions, leverage financing and collaborations, innovative grants, thought leadership and information on trends driving the Asian continent’s development