394: Will China Stand Up for Climate Policy & Carbon Dioxide Removal?—w/ Sarah Godek
About this episode
The episode discusses China's potential role in climate policy and carbon removal in the absence of US leadership.
If the US pulls out of climate action, is there room for China or another country to fill the leadership void? Or without the US, does climate multilateralism fall apart entirely? This episode is a direct response to my recent monologue episode, "How Carbon Removal Loses: The End of "Pre-Compliance"", which walked through the political risks to climate and carbon removal policy in a world where the US pulls back. I looked at Canada, the EU, its various member states, and Japan as possible safe havens. One country I left out was China. So I invited Sarah Godek back on as my "sinologist on call" to help set the record straight. Sarah Godek is a returning guest and very knowledgeable about China. Our previous episode—a conversation about realism and liberalism in geopolitics, born out of a piece she co-wrote with Grant Faber on carbon security—is linked in the resources section and is a useful first step before diving into this one. In this episode, Sarah walks me through China's energy security priorities, the difficult role coal plays in Chinese strategy, Tencent's CarbonX Prize, the absence of a clear institutional home for carbon removal inside the…
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