originally published at TheNation.com here:

Why Obama’s Challenge to China on Climate Change Is Too Little, Too Late

Beijing’s carbon-reduction targets are already […]

Lucia Green-Weiskel_CV_Sept2014

Originally published in the 4 Feb 2013 edition of The Nation here
China’s Green Leap Backward
Lucia Green-Weiskel | January 16, 2013

Reuters/Jason Lee

Signaling China’s ambition to be the world’s leader in […]

[My last blog for Peter Beinart’s class]

My first trip to China was almost ten years ago. I boarded a plane for a flight that would take over 24 hours to get me from Boston to Shanghai with a layover in […]

Originally published by Huffington Post here. With greenhouse gas emissions hitting record levels and passing climate scientist’s worst predictions , a new group of Chinese activists, traditionally silenced by an authoritarian government, is making its voice heard at the United Nations climate talks, the COP17, which began this week in Durban, South Africa. China is the largest emitter of […]

I recently read a brilliant article by China correspondent Evan Osnos in the New Yorker about his experience joining a Chinese tour group on a trip to Europe . He describes a trip at blazing speed through five countries in ten days in which tourists were told to be vigilant about thieves and unnecessary engagement […]

May 9, 2011 I have to admit I don’t spend much time thinking about the tedious war on science known as “climate change denial.” I find this contrarian bunch to be small-minded and senseless and mostly just boring because without any scientific credentials they are trying to make a scientific argument (that climate change doesn’t exist […]

First published in The Nation here. Lucia Green-Weiskel | April 21, 2011 In the wake of the partial meltdown of nuclear reactors at the Fukushima plant in Japan, China announced it would shelve plans for vast expansion of its nuclear power capacity, at least temporarily, until more stringent safety checks are performed. Construction will eventually resume, but with […]

Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World (and Finding New Ways to Get Through the Summer) By Stan Cox New Press, 2010 272 pages, $24.95 (Hardcover) Available on Amazon here and Google books here Reviewed by Lucia Green-Weiskel It’s not an obvious choice to read a book about air conditioning. Yet, without getting much attention, climate control […]

More on Electric Vehicles I was tempted this week to write about Ai Weiwei, the Chinese dissident artist who was detained while traveling to Hong Kong last week. Or Bob Dylan—who performed last week to a Beijing audience, the first notable Western musician to be given the stage in Beijing since Bjork angered authorities in Shanghai when she called […]

I work for a Chinese NGO. But in that capacity I am frequently asked to contribute analysis and even news stories to US-based publications like The Nation, Huffington Post and Grist, for which I write regularly. This means that every once in a while I suddenly have to take off my NGO advocacy hat and […]

Both the US and China have pledged to put 1 million electric vehicles on the road in the next decade (see here and here). But are electric vehicles really better for the environment? There is a common misconception that electric vehicles are carbon-neutral and that their impact on the environment is as non-offensive as the quiet sound of […]

Last week John McCain, in a joint appearance with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, said that the US and Australia should work together to rein in China. “They have been acting very assertively in the region,” he said. “The fact is they are a rising power and they are a military power.” “Now that doesn’t mean […]

In the last few weeks I have felt an odd dark and complicated cloud pass over me. At the same time, many of my Sino-file friends have fallen silent, a sharp change for the usual gregarious bunch who are known for their ability to suddenly launch into their specific version of the China-rising theory without […]

By Lucia Green-Weiskel As China bids farewell to the Year of the Tiger and rings in the Year of the Rabbit this month many Americans are wondering: Is China eclipsing the US and taking over as the world’s new superpower? In last year’s midterm election, 29 candidates (from both parties) were afraid that was the case. Each one […]

By Lucia Green-Weiskel and Tina Gerhardt Originally Published in the Huffington Post The most concrete goods delivered by last week’s bilateral state summit between President Obama and China’s President Hu Jintao came not from heads of state but from CEOs, as US and China-based businesses signed a deal through which China agreed to buy $45 billion worth of […]

By Lucia Green-Weiskel and Tina Gerhardt Originally Published on Alternet In China, a race toward self-reliance and clean energy technology is certainly on, but the U.S. still needs to make some key changes if it wants to compete. Next week, January 19 to 21, President Obama will host Chinese President Hu Jintao for their first bilateral summit this […]

originally published in The Nation here. Lucia Green-Weiskel | December 16, 2010 Cancún Just after 3 am on the last day of the UN climate change conference, exhausted negotiators from 193 countries signed an agreement that was modest and reflected elements of desperation (the one country refusing to sign, Bolivia, decried what it called “a hollow and false victory” that […]

Check out my half-hour interview on Doug Henwood’s show Behind the News. Click here to stream or download podcast.

Recent article in Grist co-authored with Tina Gerhardt see original post here Last week, in a move that pits American labor against China’s green-technology industry, the Obama administration filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization over China’s wind-power subsidies. The U.S. move challenges China’s rapid growth in the renewable-energy market, and also throws the weight of the administration behind […]