On 12 and 13 November, 2014, Dr. Philip Andrews-Speed, Dr. Su Bin and Dr. Liu Xiying from ESI participated in the second of a series of collaborative workshops organized by the King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center (KAPSARC) on China’s energy economy. The topic for this workshop held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was “China’s Sustainable Fuel Strategies”.
This workshop focused on China’s coal use and its consequences for the policy-energy-environment nexus, which was viewed through the lens of China’s energy economic fundamentals, its policy environment, and the landscape of industrial players. Additionally, the workshop also discussed the evolution of the relationships between Middle East oil and gas suppliers and consumers in Northeast Asia. The workshop was attended by about 40 people from various backgrounds, including policy makers, NGOs, think tanks and research institutions from the Middle East, Asia, America and Europe.
Dr. Philip Andrews-Speed who is Principal Fellow and Head of the Energy Security Division at ESI, delivered a presentation on “Energy policy formulation and implementation in China: experience and outlook”. He explained four mechanisms of policy formation and implementation in China’s energy sector, namely strategic programmes, investment programmes, sector reform programmes and policy instruments. He then used them as the basis for a new framework to analyse the previous policies of the Chinese government, as well as to forecast the effects of policies which are to be implemented in the future. Separately, Dr. Su Bin and Dr. Liu Xiying participated in discussions related to modeling fundamentals, understanding how society affects energy use pattern, as well as policy setting in China.