An EU-China-Brazil axis to save Paris through carbon markets
This article is part of the thematic channel The Carbon Observer: subscribe to the newsletter On 14 September, the second high-level meeting of the new Open Coalition on Compliance C...
Technology and the transition: China’s lead over the US is difficult to close
September 2015: for the first time, Xi Jinping is received at the White House by Barack Obama. In Washington, climate and the energy transition are at the heart of a rare period of cooperation betwe...
China and the USA, the (Im)possible Balance: Interview with Kaiser Kuo
Attraction and repulsion, rivalry and complementarity, fascination and misunderstandings. The relationship between China and the United States is now, more than ever, at the very heart of internatio...
The ecological transition according to BRICS: a path that challenges the West
Work continued late into the night: not usually a good sign in international negotiations, and indeed, on the eve of the negotiations, no one was betting on a successful outcome. Yet in New Delhi, i...
Murat Kurum: “COP31 will deliver results: it’s not about what you want, it’s about what you do”
Trabzon - “The seas have no passports.” On the Black Sea coast in Trabzon, Murat Kurum, Turkey’s Minister of Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change and COP31 President-Design...
Getting To the Moon is Not Enough: We Have To Stay There
Giuseppe Sala teaches at the Department of Aerospace Science and Technology at the Politecnico di Milano and chairs the Technical-Scientific Committee of BEX – Beyond Exploration, the spa...
From aid to compensation: Nepal is changing the language of the climate crisis
There is one word that Nepal’s Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal has stopped using, replaced by a different one. The first is aid. The second is compensation. The speech refers to the disast...
A flood in Nepal leaves hundreds dead or missing
An enormous mass of debris, water and mud swept away buildings, roads, bridges and thousands of people within moments, many of whom are still missing. Terrifying images are emerging from Nepal, wher...
The last ownerless territory: Antarctica and the 2048 window
In Argentine school maps, coloured in the national colours, Antarctica appears marked by a white triangle stretching from Ushuaia to the South Pole. Chilean maps show another triangle, overlapping t...
ATRenew: Giving Consumer Electronics a Second Life
“Consumers with a limited budget do not see buying second-hand items as shameful.” This is the mantra of Rex Chen, President and CFO of ATRenew, a Chinese company whose mission is to ext...
Italy-China Circular Economy Forum: addressing the challenges of the transition
Shanghai – Circular economy, water security, decarbonisation of hard-to-abate sectors. A packed agenda of B2B talks and meetings awaited participants at the “Italy-China Circular Ec...
The New Italy-China Circular Economy Forum Accelerates Cooperation
There is one thing that every European company today seems to prioritise: establishing new ties with the Chinese superpower. At the start of 2026, President Xi Jinping reached a series of important ...
Putin in China: the friendship is solid, but the pipeline remains on hold
The timing couldn’t have been better. Although Vladimir Putin’s visit to China had been planned for some time, the fact that it took place on May 20, just six days after Donald Trum...
Understanding contemporary China: the interviews of RM62
In the 62nd issue of Renewable Matter, we invited three experts to the Think Tank roundtable discussion to offer us an in-depth perspective on some of the key issues facing present-day China, s...
Under the Same Sky
The first Chinese character I ever learnt to write was tiān 天, which means “sky” or “heaven”. Perhaps because it’s easy to remember. It is made up of the charac...
Ecological Civilization as Ideology
The maturation of domestic environmental policies, programs and institutional capacity has contributed to the emergence of an ideology of Chinese global environmentalism that China has begun to depl...
The Chinese Century
Back in the day, when you wanted to glimpse into the future, you’d head to San Francisco or Las Vegas. Today, you travel to Shanghai, Hong Kong, Chengdu or Hangzhou. Robotics, AI, renewable en...
Trump-Xi: A summit of ambiguities - one meeting, two interpretations
Maybe it was the visit to the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, a symbol of good harvest and prosperity in the Chinese imperial tradition. Or perhaps it was simply the international situation and economi...
Asia-Pacific carbon markets: Indonesia, China, India – where Article 6 will be shaped
This article is part of the thematic channel The Carbon Observer: subscribe to the newsletter Anshari Rahman knows Article 6 from both sides of the table: he helped shape the rules as Sin...
China's five-year plan sets lower growth targets and reduces climate ambitions
On 4 and 5 March, Beijing has begun the Two Sessions, or Lianghui (两会), the key event in the Chinese political calendar, eagerly awaited this year for the official unveiling of the 15th Five-Yea...