China’s epic push for cleaner energy

In its dominance of low-carbon industries that range from solar and wind power, to electric vehicles, to more-efficient coal combustion, China is emerging as a clean-energy juggernaut. That’s according to Jeffrey Ball, the author of a new paper from the Cross-Brookings Initiative on Energy and Climate titled “Grow Green China Inc.” Ball argues that the West, instead of seeing this development as a threat, should see it as an opportunity both for business and for the planet.

In this episode, Ball is interviewed by David Victor, the co-chair of the energy and climate initiative here at Brookings. Victor is also a professor of international relations at UC San Diego and director of its Laboratory on International Law and Regulation. In addition to his Brookings affiliation as a nonresident senior fellow, Jeffrey Ball is also a scholar in residence at Stanford University’s Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, and a lecturer at Stanford Law School.

Also on today’s show, a look at how housing and transportation trends in the Washington capital region impact commuting, the climate, and the economy with Jenny Schuetz, a David M. Rubenstein Fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program.

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