China’s recent move to limit imports of the dirtiest coal from 2015 onwards is a scary prospect for Australian miners. The proposed restrictions will ban the burning of coal with high levels of ash or…
Chinese President Xi Jinping and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi will both skip the UN climate talks, but that doesn’t mean the world’s biggest emitters aren’t acting.
EPA/AAP
There are a few notable absentees among the more than 120 world leaders gathered in New York for today’s United Nations Climate Summit. Perhaps most notable of all is the head of the world’s highest-emitting…
He’s having a laugh: Jack Ma with the NYSE traders.
Justin Lane/EPA
Greed is still good. Wall Street has just witnessed its largest ever stock market launch as Chinese internet giant Alibaba raised some $25 billion and watched its share price rise by 35% on its first day’s…
Alibaba CEO Jack Ma gets thumbs up from investors.
EPA/YM
Qing Wang, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick
Alibaba shares will start trading on the New York Stock Exchange in a record-breaking initial public offering(IPO) which could end up raising US$25 billion. Investors have bought into a new kind of internet…
Economic reforms such as a national carbon price could usher in dramatic changes on China’s energy landscape.
Vmenkov/Wikimedia Commons
In the lead-up to the UN leaders’ summit on climate change, China is shifting up a gear in its drive towards national emissions trading. Yet for carbon pricing to be effective, market reform in China’s…
The Tangshanpeng Wind Farm in China.
Flickr/Land Rover Our Planet
With the failure of international agreements to fight climate change, the way is open to viewing the role of renewables as more than agents for reducing carbon emissions. Indeed is it possible for countries…
Charting new waters.
EPA/Alexey Druginyn/RIA Novosti/KREM
While Western nations beef up economic sanctions and Nato discusses what stance to take toward Russia, the BRICS are maintaining tacit support for Moscow despite the Ukraine crisis. This is not entirely…
In the same week Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is to visit India, Indian PM Modi has visited Japan.
Toru Hanai/EPA/AAP
Despite recent slumps in economic growth (now at just over 5.4% compared to 10.3% in 2010), former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh this year handed the new Prime Minister Narendra Modi a much more…
The human sex ratio, which is usually defined in terms of the number of males per 100 females, varies greatly between countries and regions. The biological norm is for the sex ratio at birth to be about…
PUP leader Clive Palmer said he regretted “any hurt or anguish” his comments might have caused.
AAP/Alan Porritt
PUP leader Clive Palmer has made a grovelling apology to the Chinese for his extraordinary outburst on television, in which he referred to them as “bastards” and “mongrels”. In a letter to the Chinese…
As early as 2015 China’s use of thermal coal for electricity could peak.
Bret Arnett/Flickr
China’s use of coal for electricity could peak as early as next year, then decline until 2020 in a turnaround of “global importance”, according to economist Ross Garnaut in a lecture presented at the Melbourne…
Fears Australia may be hammered in China’s attempts to rebalance its economy, might be overstated.
Image sourced from www.shutterstock.com
China’s leaders have been vocal in their support of a new growth model, one where consumption leads the way. Economic commentators fret about what this means for Australia. One view is that economic pain…
China is playing its own game of anti-monopoly.
铁蛋骑士/Flickr
If multinationals operating in China were not already aware China has a competition law and is not afraid to use it, events of the past few weeks should have prompted them to call their lawyers and ask…
How to Train Your Dragon 2 has flown to the top of the foreign box office, raking in US$37.7m from 28 markets. This success was principally driven by China, which brought in US$25.9m, and comes right on…
A Mongolian monk tends to his solar panels, deep in the Gobi desert.
EPA
The Gobi Desert in East Asia conjures images of a remote landscape, with nomads riding across the steppe. In fact, today it is home to herders and farmers, the world’s fastest-growing economy, vast copper…
Pope Francis flew over China on his way to South Korea late last week, where the Catholic Church has seen rapid growth in the last decade. Papal custom is to send a telegram to the leaders of nations over…
Chinese authorities have called time on GM rice.
EPA
One of China’s major genetically modified food projects is now to all intents and purposes dead and buried. The expiry on August 17 of the biosafety certificates issued to strains of GM rice developed…
Guo Meimei, a Chinese internet celebrity, was recently arrested for involvement in illegal gambling and the sex trade. In China she was a star, well known for her flashy lifestyle. She later appeared on…
Cong Cao, University of Nottingham and Yutao Sun, University of Nottingham
China’s raft of anti-monopoly investigations has become a source of growing controversy. Given that the targets are often American or European firms, much of the debate inevitably surrounds what the real…
How genuine is China’s commitment to green energy?
WiNG
During Chinese premier Li Keqiang’s last visit to the UK, China signed a series of deals on energy and low carbon technology, and a declaration of cooperation on climate change. A few weeks later, similar…