The Renewable Energy Revolution in East Asia and the Nordics - Transcript

Transcript:

Nordic Asia Podcast - The Renewable Energy Revolution in East Asia and the Nordics, A discussion with Paul Midford, Espen Moe and Eric Zusman. Hosted By Kenneth Bo Nielsen.

Opener  00:00:02  

This is the Nordic Asia Podcast.

Kenneth Bo Nielsen  00:00:09  

Welcome to the Nordic Asia podcast, a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic Region. My name is Kenneth Bo Nielsen. I'm a social anthropologist based in Oslo and also the coordinator of the Norwegian Network for Asian Studies. In this episode we will be introduced to two new books that broadly engage the sustainability question in Asia, although from slightly different points of departure. The first is an exciting comparative edited volume titled 'New Challenges and Solutions for Renewable Energy: Japan, East Asia and Northern Europe', published by Palgrave earlier this year. The second book is titled 'Aligning Climate Change and Sustainable Development Policies in Asia'. This volume will be published by Springer in July, I'm joined by the two editors of new challenges and solutions for renewable energy, Paul midford and Espen Moe, who presented this book at a recent webinar hosted by the Norwegian network for Asian studies. Paul Midford is also a former head of our networks steering committee, and currently professor at Meiji Gakuin University, his co editor, Espen Moe, is a professor at the Department of Sociology and political science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. And last but not least with us is also Eric Zusman, one of the three co editors of aligning climate change and sustainable development policies in Asia. Eric Zusman is Senior Policy researcher and area leader at the Institute for Global Environmental Studies in hayama, Japan. Welcome to the three of you. And thank you for joining us today. Espen and Paul, your book brings experiences from Japan, East Asian and Northern Europe into a comparative conversation, something that I think is in itself quite unusual. Please tell us what your book is about and what motivated you to undertake this comparative exercise across continents.

Paul Midford  00:02:13  

Well, briefly, we are examining the renewable energy revolution that the world is currently experiencing. Where now total investment in renewable energy wealth surpasses that and fossil fuel and nuclear power generation. And cost for wind and solar power, and some other forms of renewable energy are dropping dramatically, making them in some cases even cheaper than fossil fuels, such as coal or natural gas. But at the same time, there's this issue that the adoption of renewable energy varies greatly across nations. So this is the kind of puzzle we explore. We start with Japan, the world's third largest economy, it's kind of the center of the book. But then we look at other economies in East Asia, including China, which is, of course, the world's second largest economy. And then some other cases that have not been examined so closely, such as South Korea, which is really a leader in renewable energy technology, but is lacking very much in adoption. We look at Vietnam, a developing country that is adopting renewable energy technologies and generation very rapidly. We also look at Singapore, a city state that is notable for experiencing a healthy expansion of PV solar energy, electricity generation in the absence of subsidies, which makes it a unique case. So we look at some interesting cases. And we also look at renewable energy development in Northern Europe. And I think maybe my colleague Espen would like to address that.

Espen Moe  00:03:41  

I think I'd also like to add that we wrote a book back in 2014. And in the book in 2014, we made a few mentions to what our future challenges. Well, these are present challenges in 2021. And I think we'll get back to those later in the podcast. But I think it's nice to mention that this field is changing so fast, the world is changing so fast that what our future challenges today will be present challenges tomorrow, etc.

Kenneth Bo Nielsen  00:04:11  

Eric, if we turn to 'Aligning climate change and sustainable development policies in Asia', this is a book that you have co edited with two other scholars Hooman Fazaneh and Yeora Chae, what brought the three of you together for this particular project?

Eric Zusman  00:04:27  

Thank you very much for this question. So the reason that the three of us came together is we've all been working, sometimes in collaboration and sometimes independently, on this topic of co-benefits. And co-benefits refers to the additional benefits that you get, in some cases when you mitigate climate change, and are also able to address other development priorities, especially when you're able to reduce air pollution. So the three of us have different disciplinary backgrounds. Dr. Hooman is an environmental engineer. Dr. Chae is an energy modeler, and I'm a political scientist. But we realized that in order to actually design and implement policies that reflect these co benefits, you need to incorporate these different disciplinary perspectives.

Kenneth Bo Nielsen  00:05:22  

Espen, if we return to the analysis of renewables, that we find  in new challenges and solutions for renewable energy. Renewable energy, as you remind us is no longer a niche. It has become a major actor in its own right. More and more renewables, we know are now being added to the global energy system. But does this actually amount to an energy transition as in renewables replacing fossil fuels? Or would it be more accurate to simply speak of an energy addition where renewables is merely complementing fossil fuels as they are already used within the existing energy system. 

Espen Moe  00:05:59  

So, the slightly sorry fact is that with a few exceptions, it is still mainly a supplement. So developments have been rapid, so solar and wind had roughly a two and a half percent share of the power mix in 2010. And it's almost 10% today, that means there's still quite a few percentages to go. And that's just the power mix. If you look at final energy consumption, 10 years ago, it was 0.7%. Today it is 2.5%. So worldwide, it's still in the margin. At the same time, we see petroleum companies talk the talk, they don't really walk the walk yet, but they do talk the talk, they invest in offshore wind, and they realize that survival means changing. You had a court case in Germany recently where the government was forced by the legal system to increase its level of ambition with respect to his climate emissions. So it's no longer a niche. They're powerful actors in their own right, even if they can't be compared to petroleum. But in most countries, we're still talking about a supplement. But obviously, there are different countries and different pathways in different countries. So in Denmark, you for instance, see that coal is definitely being phased out as wind power is being phased in. Doesn't mean that Denmark, and for that matter, other Western countries also have some of the largest carbon footprints in the world. But you also see structural changes in the sense that has enormous investments in offshore wind over the next few decades, Vestas is the biggest wind power company on the planet. So Denmark is one of those countries that is actively embracing some of what Eric said was co benefits embracing the potential industrial benefits that might be had from being a frontrunner in the energy transition. And we do see in a number of countries that coal is the first to go, the first to be phased out, even if it's not letting go easily is the first to be phased out. It is being phased out actively somewhere in space because of the price somewhere. But let's also talk about China because you can never talk about climate change without talking about China. So China's added lots and lots of renewable capacity. It is by far the leader and wind power, and by far the leader in solar power when it comes to total capacity. If on the other hand, you look at the share of the power mix, then Denmark is in the 50% range, Germany's in the 30% range, China, with the United States, with Japan, and with a number of countries is struggling to get above 10%. So it increases its share by a percentage a year. And that's obviously great. But it also adds a lot of coal capacity. So we should never forget that every single measure of how the energy transition is faring is a partial measure. And we should never forget that absolute figures are really what counts. So if China increases its share of renewables, well, if it still keeps increasing coal capacity and absolute figures and coal generation absolute figures, well, we're not really talking about a lot of structural change, we're talking about more of everything, even though there's even more of renewables than there is of coal, and petroleum and gas and everything. So what we see is kind of predictable, we see that we're not facing vested interest battles where the end result is uncertain. But where the system is definitely being strained. It's not as if coal wants to go away without a fight. And it's putting up a fight in China, as in many other countries, and something will eventually have to give, but so far it hasn't given. And it's not obvious what will give and when it will give but it's becoming obvious that the system can't go on like it is for all eternity. So I think that's the roundabout way of answering your question.

Kenneth Bo Nielsen 00:09:36  

Paul, what Espen describes here is related to something that you also dwell on in your book at length, namely, what you call the second stage challenges to making renewable energy as the main source of power that actually replaces fossil fuels and nuclear power. More specifically, what are these second stage challenges that you describe? How do they differ from so-called first stage challenges?

Paul Midford  00:10:03  

Well, let me start by describing first stage challenges. So first stage challenges are making these technologies; wind and solar power in particular, commercially viable. Making them scalable so that they can be used on the grid. And not just off the grid, say in a cabin or something, but actually connecting to the grid as at least, as Espen was saying as a supplemental power source, but one that actually feeds into the grid and at least produces a few percentage points of electricity. So the first stage challenges included making these technologies inexpensive enough to connect to the grid and then also harmonizing them so that they would connect to the grid without destabilizing the grid. So that means some technologies for kind of levelizing the amount of power that they put onto the grid. But the major challenges for the first stage then were scalability, and just the technology to make them commercially viable. And the economics to make them commercially viable, which also involved a lot of subsidies such as the feed in tariff. It also involves challenges in terms of getting access to the grid legally. So grid parity, and the feed in tariffs are kind of the two solutions that were used in the first stage challenges to get renewable energy on the grid and beginning to contribute to national energy systems. Stage two challenges are, as Espen was saying, moving renewable energy from a supplement to the mainstay, to essentially taking over the entire electricity production system by replacing fossil fuels and nuclear power entirely. Here, the challenges are reforming the grid, so that renewable energy can become the main and the only power source for the grid. And then investing in more storage and then also the hydrogen economy. So to start with grid reform, there are two things, first there's building up the grid extensively. That means building more tie lines between regions within Europe. That means linking national electricity systems with tie lines so that when the wind dies down in Britain, for example, in theory, Norway can send electricity to Britain to supplement that through its hydroelectric plant, which my colleague Espen has written about. Or in the case of East Asia, it might mean that wind and solar power produced in Inner Mongolia and China can be sent to Japan and South Korea via these tie lines. On the other hand, then you have at the opposite end the need for more localized grids and strengthening of localized grids as well. And then finally, you need smart grids, so grids that are more flexible. That involves technologies such as smart meters, which more and more people in Norway and Japan and other countries are becoming familiar with. And this has a lot to do with demand management so that you can get a discount if you use electricity when demand is low. And maybe you pay a premium to use electricity when it's in high demand. So the idea is that the peaks and valleys of demand can be smoothed out. And also so that they can be made to correspond to the production of renewable energy, so that you can get a synchronicity there that allows more renewables to be brought onto the grid. Another requirement is investment in storage capacity, it could be traditional types of storage capacity, like pump hydro power. When you use electricity to pump water up to the top of a mountain, and then it's essentially stored there as potential energy and then you run it back down the mountain when you need the electricity. Or it could be lithium ion batteries, grid batteries, which are dropping rapidly in price they dropped like 50%. Over the last several years in price. Tesla has been deploying 100 megawatt scale battery packs in Australia, and now in other countries. And these are extremely useful for storing renewable electricity when it's produced in surplus and then sending it to the grid when it's needed, like at night when solar panels are not producing electricity. Then finally, we have the hydrogen economy, which is a similar idea. Hydrogen, of course, is an energy carrier. It's not an energy source. But you can manufacture so called green or blue hydrogen, from renewable energy from solar power from wind power that you can store and you can then use that to convert it back into electricity for the grid through a fuel cell. Or you can use it as a fuel source for fuel cells for automobiles for trucks, transportation, etc. So it's a fuel source that can be made with renewable energy that can help to actually replace the use of fossil fuels in transportation, and maybe even eventually other applications. Ground transportation and trains are now being used. Ships and in the near future, maybe also passenger airplanes may start to use hydrogen as a fuel source.

Kenneth Bo Nielsen  00:14:48  

Well, if we zoom in on some of the very many countries specific cases you have in 'New challenges and solutions for renewable energy'. If we look at Japan, which I know is your field of particular expertise. As far as I could make out preparing for this podcast, Japan aims to ensure that renewables meet around 1/4 of its energy needs roughly a decade from now. And as of today, I think that share is hovering around 20%, perhaps slightly less than 20%. This doesn't sound all that ambitious, I mean, has Japan really decided to choose renewable energy as a means for decarbonizing its economy? Or is nuclear power still in the running as a major, or perhaps even the major power source for accomplishing this?

Paul Midford  00:15:38  

You're exactly right that Japan's targets for renewable energy have not at all been ambitious, anything but ambitious in fact. The figures for 2030 have been 22% to 24%. And by contrast, that for nuclear power has been 20 to 22%. So just slightly above nuclear power has been the target for renewables. However, since our book was published, Japan is now preparing its new strategic energy plan, which should be published soon. And the new target that's being discussed, although it hasn't been finalized, would be to raise the renewable energy target to up to 38%. So that would be a more ambitious target, maybe not as ambitious as it could be. But still, if that comes to fruition, which it looks as though it will, that will be a substantial increase. On the other hand, picking up on something that Espen was saying, that's not really going to come at the expense of nuclear power, they're still gonna stick with a 20 to 22% target. What it will mean is that Japan is finally abandoning plans to build new coal fired plants. Japan has been building new coal plants, as has China, it did this in the wake of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident. And the idea was in the short run to replace nuclear power with coal, Japan is now moving to abandon that. So that's good news. So those plans are being scrapped. And there's a call to reduce the amount of coal that Japan relies on for the share of coal and its energy mix by 2030. So that's good news. As for nuclear power, there's kind of the official policy and then like kind of actual policy. The official policy is that nuclear power should make up 20 to 22% of the energy mix by 2030. The reality is, that probably won't happen. Because the Nuclear Regulatory Agency has imposed very strict safety measures on Japan's electric utilities, it's taking them a lot of time, and they have to invest a huge amount of energy to retrofit their nuclear power plants, only nine out of about 43 nuclear reactors have been restarted. And it's estimated that at most, maybe low 20s, slightly more will ever be restarted. So it's unlikely that they will actually get to that target. Currently, nuclear power makes up about 19% of Japan's energy mix. And it's estimated by 2030, maybe a little over 15%. So a problem Japan has is that it actually is de facto moving away from nuclear energy, but the government hasn't openly admitted that. But that's the actual reality because they're not building any new nuclear power plants. The previous governments under the Democratic Party of Japan was saying nuclear power will be phased out by the end of the 2030s. The current government doesn't say anything about phase out, but the trajectory they're on suggests by the end of the 2050s at latest. However, we had a recent development a few weeks ago in which an economic strategy document produced by the Japanese government dropped the phrase nuclear power is an important baseload of electricity for Japan. That has been dropped due to opposition from the environment minister and another senior minister in Prime Minister Suga's cabinet. So that is an indication I think that we may be moving towards an open recognition that Japan is abandoning nuclear power. And the question then becomes not whether but how fast and how does it do it? And I might add that some of the leading candidates to succeed Suga, as prime minister are openly opposed to nuclear power.

Kenneth Bo Nielsen  00:19:04  

Espen you spoke briefly earlier about the case of Denmark, and I'm quite intrigued by this inclusion of the Nordic Region in your book. In addition to the chapter on Denmark, you also have chapters dealing with Norway and Finland. What does this inclusion of the Nordic countries do for your book? I mean, your own chapter is about Norway, for example.

Espen Moe  00:19:27  

The Nordic Region is pretty much the most networked energy area in the world. So in a future world where countries have to be linked together with interconnectors and subsea cables, the Nordic countries are actually very interesting countries to focus on. And in the extension of the Nordic countries, obviously, the European Union, but also the Norway chapter very much illustrates how difficult this field is. So our book has country cases. Norway is a rich country with an environmental image a bit of a special case being scarcely populated with lots of renewable resources, as well as petroleum, so self-sufficient many times over on energy. So the question of Norway as a green battery for Europe has been up for at least 10 years. The Norwegian case, to some extent illustrates that maybe potential third volume in our book series should be about not single countries, but about relationships between countries. This is obviously, maybe the area in the world where is the most obvious and international measures are needed. Climate change is the most international problem that we have. And the renewable world is a networked world. And what the Norwegian case illustrates is that almost all of policymaking is still on the national level. And the public debate with a few exceptions, is one that primarily takes national considerations. And with the exception of environmental organizations, not even all environmental organizations, and the most environmentally oriented political parties. Most parties in the Norwegian public discourse, and the Norwegian political parties want to utilize the natural resources for maximum social profits within Norway. So it's pretty much an economic discourse about how we utilize this most sensibly, and sensibly means in the interests of consumers and industry. And everyone is obviously interested in climate but that becomes a sort of a second stage, or a secondhand concern, and most interesting with a Norwegian debate. So Norway has now over the past two years, finalized two subsea cables one to Germany and one to Britain. And over the past couple of years, we've installed quite a lot of wind power. It's interesting how in a few years, the debate has become extremely toxic. It has gone from everyone being non committally in favor of wind power, back in the days when we hardly had any wind power. To everyone being deeply skeptical of wind power, that wind power destroys pristine nature, etc, etc. So we've had this situation of, I sometimes call this an unholy alliance of nature conservationists, anti capitalists, and anti globalist slash populists joining forces to attack wind power. And it's led to a situation where it's very hard in Norway these days to rationally and calmly discuss wind power with the benefits and the disadvantages that it has. You get these memes that we can save the climate by destroying the nature. Trust has completely gone out of the window. with pretty much every single large scale wind power installation in Norway over the past couple of years, there has been accusations of the wind power entrepreneurs being Nazis, that Norway is being occupied, that we're being colonized. One of the more vocal environmental organizations in the front page of his web page that we are becoming a colony of Germany slash the European Union. So in very few years, it's become very visible that there is a trade off between nature conservation and green energy production. And when the nature conservationists are joined by the people who are worried that Norwegian electricity prices will rise and make Norwegian industry less competitive, and Norway has a lot of energy intensive industries that do well, because electricity is cheap and renewable. Then you have pretty much the opposite of the co-benefits, you have the negative co-benefits that Eric talks about. That a number of these actors find together and resist wind power on different grounds. And the present end to the story is that Norway will not become a green battery for Europe. Once these two cables have been built, there will be no more cables, at least for a long while and wind power installations will for now, not forever, because Norway will soon realize that Norway needs more electricity independently of electricity exports. But for now, wind power installations will grind to a complete halt. So it shows you that this is an area that is extremely international and in one way is environmental folly, not to use a renewable resources that Norway have that at its disposition. And obviously, there's also major financial benefits to be had from exporting renewable energy. So the power sector will tell you that there's no difference between exporting energy and exporting salmon or exporting petroleum. But this has become toxic in so few years, it's very hard to see Norway becoming linked to Europe to any greater extent than it already is for a long while. Now, speaking of Denmark, Norway already had a number of subsea cables to Denmark. So Denmark was in the lucky position that its wind power miracle has to a major extent dependent on being able to draw on Norwegian hydro power when the wind doesn't blow, and selling wind power to Norway when the grid was not strong enough to cope with surplus wind power being produced in Denmark. So the cables to Norway and the interconnectors to Germany and Sweden is to a large extent precondition for Denmark being able to be such a success with wind power. Now Denmark is also having its sort of supranational kind of problem. It may not have become a problem yet, and it may not evolve to become a problem. But Denmark is now in a situation, for the first time getting to the point where baseload at home is not great enough to cover the Danish energy peaks. And we don't really write about the consequent problems of this to that great of an extent in the book. But it's what I have slightly flippantly called third generation challenges and next book challenges, namely that Denmark is facing energy security challenges that most countries on the planet will face to in 10 years or 20 years or in 30 years as they develop wind power sectors that are the same size as Denmark. And as political scientists we're raised to believe in the anarchic self help system, where countries take care of their own energy problems. And for a number of years, that meant more oil on bigger supertankers on relatively free world markets. But the renewable energy world is a completely different one. That's a networked world. And so energy security challenges have to develop from being self help challenges to being network challenges. Where Norway depends on Denmark, which depends on Germany, which depends on France, which depends on Britain, etc, etc. And this is a huge revolution in terms of energy security thinking, and it might work reasonably well within the European Union. But if you start involving China, Japan, the US and also relying on solar power, in unstable countries in Sub-Sahara, you kind of realize how big of a challenge this is. And once again, Denmark is coping reasonably well with this at the moment, but this is a future challenge that every country will have to start facing sooner or later.

Kenneth Bo Nielsen  00:26:40  

Eric Zusman, in 'Aligning climate change and sustainable development policies in Asia', you discuss both climate change, and also broader processes of sustainable development planning in the Asian context. Could you explain to us why it is important for policymakers to integrate climate change with these broader sustainable development planning processes.

Eric Zusman 00: 27:03  

So I think it's important to underline that still, for many policymakers, whether they be at the national or local level, responding to climate change, still is slightly a tough sell. And I think part of the reason for this is that the perception is that climate change is very much a long term problem. It's a global problem. And if you invest in it, the impacts of that investment, especially for either your country or city, it's relatively uncertain whether those impacts are going to be seen. And so I think for many policymakers, you need to change the calculus on climate change, in order to persuade them to either mitigate their greenhouse gases or invest in infrastructure that would make their economy more resilient to climate change. And one of the ways to change that calculus is to demonstrate how investing in climate change can also deliver what I would suggest are near term, local and relatively certain benefits. So it's possible then to think about climate change and climate change policy in the broader context of efforts to achieve sustainable development. And many of these efforts will, for instance, help you to reduce air pollution, or improve public health, or close equity gaps, or promote the empowerment of women. If you can do things that help to address climate change, while also achieving these other goals, then you can begin to change the calculus on climate policy, and also make the argument for more ambitious climate policies more persuasive. And in fact, I think what you can do is move from an argument which might be suggesting that, you know, climate policies is a good policy to an argument that makes it good politics. And I think this resonates quite closely with some of the points that were being raised by both Paul and Espen in their book. So in some ways, you know, it helps to make a good political argument for working on climate change. I think that's one of the key points that we try to emphasize in our book. The other point that we tried to emphasize is that this alignment between climate change and sustainable development is also consistent with two important international policymaking processes. So on one hand, of course, you have the climate change processes and the global agreement on climate change, Paris agreement, which has been in place since 2015. And that's underneath the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. And then on the other hand, you have the sustainable development processes, which is currently focusing on this new sustainable development agenda for 2030. And the core of that is what we call The Sustainable Development Goals, there are 17 different sustainable development goals that countries have collectively agreed to work on from 2015 up to 2030. And as you might imagine, you know, for countries that are dealing with these two rather large international agendas, it makes sense to think about, okay, well, where do they intersect, and one area was very clear, one of the Sustainable Development Goals. That's the SDG on climate change itself. So that's a very clear overlap. But there's also many other possible synergies. And to also revert a little bit back to the point Espen was raising. There are also some trade offs too. So one of the SDGs focuses a lot on industrialization and job creation. But you could suggest, for instance, that some of the efforts to transition to carbon neutral economy or to promote renewables could lead to job losses. So I think as we take these two big international agendas, and bring them down to the national level, it's going to be increasingly important that we understand what these synergies look like where their trade offs look like. And policymakers are going to need to become increasingly adept at trying to maximize the synergies, and manage some of these trade offs. This tool will also help to strengthen the political argument from moving on climate change. And also moving on some of the other issues that perhaps don't get as much attention in international national policy circles that are related to climate change, such as biodiversity loss. So I would suggest from both a political standpoint, and also from looking at international policymaking processes, the alignment between climate change and sustainable development is very important. And given the size of the population, as well as the rate of industrialization and urbanization in Asia, there are a few regions, I think that could benefit more from this alignment.

Kenneth Bo Nielsen  00:32:06  

In that case, what tools and experiences are actually then available to policymakers who hope to strengthen this alignment, or perhaps even the integration between climate change and sustainable development more broadly.

Eric Zusman  00:32:21  

So there are a suite of tools that are out there. And I mean, the number of tools and the number of experiences are growing exponentially with each passing day. But many of the tools and experiences we focus on come back to this concept of co-benefits again. And the concept of co-benefits has actually been around for about 30 years or so, and is focused largely on linkages between climate change, air pollution, and public health. And there are a lot of tools that are based upon energy models, health models, and some cases technology specific engineering models, which will essentially allow you to understand, okay, if I want to invest in, for instance, a solar farm in Mongolia, what would be the impacts not only in terms of reductions in greenhouse gases? But how could I also understand reductions in local air pollution, and improvements in health and labor productivity? How can I understand some of these additional benefits that would come from this investment. And I would also suggest, you know, perhaps in Mongolia and other developing country contexts, they might actually reverse this equation and suggest that reductions in greenhouse gases are sort of your additional benefits. And the core benefits are your health improvements and reductions in air pollution. But in either case, by using these types of tools, you can begin to understand what the full suite of benefits look like, and also put them into monetary terms, which would also once again, make the case for moving on climate change and these other issues, more persuasive to politicians. In fact, when this initial research on co benefits started, it focused largely on developed countries, because I think that was where the climate change debate was most active. And also the data and the tools were easily applicable. But I think over the past 20 years, we've seen tools being applied more and more in developing country context. And this is also reflected now building of capacities in developing countries, more data that's available, and perhaps most importantly, the seriousness of the air pollution problems that we've seen, especially in developing countries. So the tools are out there. And I would suggest looking through our book and some of the chapters focus on modeling basically how much co-benefits you would get from different types of policies, especially in terms of air pollution, reductions and health improvements. In terms of experiences, what we've seen I think because many of these tools have proliferated and become more mainstream, is countries have begun to take on board this idea of co-benefits in different ways and using different entry points. But with growing regularity and with more visibility, so to give you a very concrete illustration. Within China, now there's growing discussion of, they don't call it co benefits, but the literal translation is co control or shift control. And this is more of a process where they try to understand how air pollution policies and climate change policies interact with each other, and with what effects on the environment and health and what have you. And what's happened is this whole control approach has picked up steam, I'd say, especially over the past two to three years, because the climate change portfolio in China used to be chiefly the province of the National Development Reform Commission, which was in charge of energy and climate policy. But now the climate change policy is part of the portfolio of the environmental agency or the ministry on ecosystems and environment. And with that shift, now you have the main agency in charge of air pollution and climate change, handling both of those agendas. And now they're looking more and more at how the different policies interact with each other, and looking more ways to maximize efficiencies, so that you don't necessarily have to do one climate policy and one air pollution policy, but basically streamline the two of them. And this is happening at the national level, and increasingly now happening at the local level. So we're actually working with partners in cities, such as Chengdu, China, to try to strengthen this co-control approach. I think these experiences are growing throughout the region, I can highlight many cases within the book. But the last one, I think, I'll suggest is the case of South Korea. Because I think this is also an area where, as Paul mentioned at the very beginning of the podcast, where there has been a lot of availability of renewable energy technologies, but not as much progress and adoption. And I think one of the things that's happened within Korea's efforts to actually improve air quality and health have perhaps given more impetus to the promotion of renewable energy. And so here's a case where the health and the air quality arguments have helped perhaps push forward or accelerate the transition to cleaner energy. And so those are just some of the experiences that we've seen in the region, I think the very last point I'd like to make is the book closes with two additional chapters, which go a little bit outside the conventional co-benefits approach. And these focus on what we call social co-benefits. So thinking more carefully about how efforts to mitigate climate change can also lead to benefits for marginalized populations, and can also empower women, and how to bring these different groups into the transition, as well as what we call biodiversity co-benefits. So thinking a lot more about how climate change interacts with efforts to preserve biodiversity. And this, I think, brings us into a place where we can think a little bit more carefully about not only the health of the people, but also the health of the planet, and how the two of those things interact with each other. I think that type of more integrative perspective is increasingly relevant given where we are with COVID and the potential impacts of climate change for future generations. So I'll stop there. Thank you.

Kenneth Bo Nielsen  00:38:44  

Thank you, Eric. 'Aligning climate change and sustainable development policies in Asia' will be out in July this year, and of course, 'New challenges and solutions for renewable energy: Japan, East Asia and Northern Europe' is already out. Two excellent and highly recommended reads indeed, Eric Zusman, Espen Moe and Paul Midford, thank you for being with us today. My name is Kenneth Bo Nielsen and thank you all for joining the Nordic Asia Podcast showcasing Nordic collaboration in studying Asia

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