Industrial Decarbonization in China and Beyond

Decarbonizing industrial sectors is a difficult and essential challenge. While power, transportation, and land-use understandably receive privileged attention for near-term mitigation needs, we will only reach our collective climate goals if we can also transform hard-to-abate sectors that drive our built economy.

On November 3rd, the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) hosted a panel discussion, "Industrial Decarbonization in China and Beyond," at COP26 in Glasgow. The session, moderated by ASPI Senior Advisor and Duke University Senior Fellow Jackson Ewing, featured Tareq Emtairah, director of Energy at the United National Industrial Development Organization; Xi Liang, Professor at University College London; and Alistair Ritchie, ASPI’s Director of Asia-Pacific Sustainability. The experts explored industrial decarbonization challenges and assessed promising policy tools for addressing them, such as emissions trading schemes and carbon capture, utilization, and storage.

Speakers

Jackson Ewing (Moderator) serves as Senior Advisor for Sustainability with the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI). Jackson holds a joint appointment as a senior fellow at Duke University's Nicholas Institute of Environmental Policy Solutions and an adjunct associate professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy. Previously he served as ASPI's Director for Asian Sustainability in New York, leading projects on environmental cooperation, responsible resource development, and international climate change policy. 

Tareq Emtairah is the Director of the Energy Department at UNIDO. His work experience spans over 22 years in developed and emerging economies with a progressive focus on sustainable industrial transformation, energy transition, policy advocacy, applied research, and capacity development. Before joining UNIDO, he worked as a senior research fellow at the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics (IIIEE) at Lund University, Sweden, and prior to that served as the executive director of the Regional Center for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (RCREEE) based in Cairo, from 2012-2015.

Xi Liang currently serves as a Professor of Sustainable Construction and Project Management at Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction at University College London. Prior to joining UCL, he has been a Senior Lecturer in Energy Finance and Director at the Centre for Business and Climate Change (CBCC) at the University of Edinburgh. Xi is also a Standing Committee Member for China’s Climate Investment and Finance Association (CIFA) and Deputy Director for China’s CCUS Committee, within Chinese Society for Environmental Sciences. Xi recently was the lead expert for Asian Development Bank’s Municipal Climate Finance Project in China.

Alistair Ritchie is Director of Asia-Pacific Sustainability at the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI), where he leads and oversees activities on Asian carbon market development and ASPI’s overall sustainability portfolio. Alistair is an international expert in greenhouse gas emissions trading systems (ETSs), and a known leader in their development - including as leader of the European Commission project to support the Korean government’s implementation and upgrade of their emissions trading system (the first national ETS in East Asia).