The world watches closely as China, the world's top energy consumer, announces its plans for the next five years: a series of comprehensive economic reform, development, and transformation guidelines that will shape how the country - and to a large extent the world - uses energy and addresses climate change.

How will China balance economic growth with environmental concerns? How will it manage its transformation from an investment-based and export-led economy to one having a robust domestic demand, all the while ensuring energy efficiency and sustainability? And what role will China play in developing renewable and clean tech solutions for the rest of the world? These are questions that have a profound impact on the world energy and climate landscape for years to come.

In this EWG discussion, we will highlight some of the proposed energy, efficiency and climate goals and policies, look back on China's progress and challenges in achieving its last five-year plan, and consider broader implications on the road ahead.

The Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies and the Economic Research Institute for Northeast Asia (ERINA) will host a seminar on the potential areas of cooperation between the U.S., Japan, and China on developing clean coal technology and clean energy markets and policies titled, "Developing Clean Energy Markets: Toward China-Japan-U.S. Trilateral Cooperation" on October 25, 2010.

Researcher He will be participating in the Prospects and Bottlenecks for Clean Energy Cooperation portion of the seminar.

Event Summary from Brookings

In recent years, the United States and China have engaged in high-profile discussions and collaborated on various aspects of clean energy. The United States and China have also separately worked with Japan. However, these nations-the world's three largest economies and three of the four largest energy consumers-have not worked together in a trilateral format.

On October 25, the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at Brookings and the Economic Research Institute for Northeast Asia hosted a seminar featuring presentations by experts from Japan, China, and the U.S. Panelists will describe existing bilateral cooperation on developing clean energy markets and policies, and will illuminate opportunities for truly trilateral cooperation, especially in the areas of energy efficiency and clean coal.

After each panel, the speakers took audience questions.

More information about this event on www.brookings.edu

PESD Director Frank Wolak will be participating in the Singapore Electricity Roundtable 2010 hosted by Energy Market Company (EMC) as the keynote speaker -on the challenges in developing regional electricity markets, as well as an industry panelist.

EMC is gathering leading practitioners and thinkers in the electricity industry for this event, which is dedicated to connecting influencers, decision makers, potential investors and experts in the electricity and related industries. Senior executives and decision makers from the energy, electricity and related industries in Singapore and across the region look forward to this valuable opportunity to meet one another and discuss the challenges and issues of importance to the electricity industry in Asia Pacific and globally.

Topics this year will range from challenges of developing regional electricity markets and insight into the impact of pricing CO2 into electricity trading to smart metering and electricity derivatives markets plus updates on Thailand, China and the NEMS. Our much-anticipated panel discussion will cover Singapore's Economic Strategies Committee's (ESC) recommendations and implications for the power industry.

Wolak spoke at the 3-day City Leader Program event on Thursday, September 9^th which gathered 50 cities' mayors from China.  Frank Wolak presented on the topic of Visionary & Executive Leadership: Investment Management & Decision Making for Future Economic Development with a presentation titled "Managing an Increasing Renewable Generation Share Through Active Demand-Side Participation".

This year's event was hosted in collaboration with Cisco and held on Stanford campus.

PESD Researcher Gang He is invited to "China Scope at MIT: Understanding China's Economy and Society" conference hosted by the Boston-area China Care Clubs and M-Stone Advisory, which is being held at MIT from September 17-18, 2010.

Gang will be giving a lecture on "China's Environment Challenges in the Greatest Socio-economic Transformation" on Saturday, September 18th with a Q&A following.