This talk will compare current US and China environmental approaches in such areas as air pollution, transportation, as well as climate change, and the interplay between national and local or regional government policies and their implementation.

Has there been a role reversal between the US and China on the environment? China has long been considered an environmental outlier – horrendous smog episodes, water unfit to drink and even to irrigate, huge increases in the number of cars on the road, a global leader in the use of pesticides, a major coal producer and importer, a reluctant participant in global climate negotiations until recently, and more. The US, until November 9 last year, had been seen as at least modestly responsive to environmental concerns. Now with Donald Trump and Scott Pruitt ensconced in Washington seeking to systematically dismantle the environmental policy system in contrast to the passage of environmental legislation and a new role around climate change in China, the roles do seem to be reversing.

The talk will compare current US and China environmental approaches in such areas as air pollution, transportation, as well as climate change, and the interplay between national and local or regional government policies and their implementation. It will point to the role of social movements and popular protests to help us understand what has changed and why.  And it will look at the structural barriers for change: the nature of China’s embrace of marketization, developmentalism, and urbanization on the one hand, and the continuing power of the fossil fuel industry and other environmentally problematic industry forces in the US to shape or at least block policies.

Robert Gottlieb is Emeritus Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy, and founder and former Director of the Urban & Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College, Los Angeles. Simon Ng is an environmental and transport consultant, and Fellow and former Chief Research Officer at Civic Exchange, a public policy think tank in Hong Kong. Robert and Simon co-authored Global Cities: Urban Environments in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, and China, published by the MIT Press in May 2017.

No registration necessary.