Decoupling Crisis: Subnational Climate Action & China’s Domestic Coal Challenge

Please join the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and the Belfer Center's Environment and Natural Resources Program (ENRP) for a Critical Issues Confronting China lecture with Fan Dai, Assistant Professor of International Climate Policy at the University of California, Berkeley and ENRP Senior Fellow. ENRP Director Henry Lee will serve as a discussant.

Fan Dai is an Assistant Professor in International Climate Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley. She is also a Senior Fellow with the Belfer Center’s Environment and Natural Resources Program and the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center.

Dr. Dai has played a significant role leading California’s collaboration with China on climate, energy and environment. She was appointed by Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr as Special Advisor on China. Under Brown, Dr. Dai chaired the state’s China Interagency Working Group, and acted as the state’s liaison on its critical economic and environmental initiatives on China. Previously, Dr. Dai served as senior advisor at California Environmental Protection Agency and California Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development, advising on the state’s international policy and global climate partnership. In 2017, she organized Governor Brown’s trip, which resulted in a successful meeting with President Xi Jinping and the commitment to establish the California-China Climate Institute.

Dr. Dai is a graduate of Berkeley Law, University of California, and holds a doctoral degree on Environmental Policy and Economics from State University of New York. Her research has been focused on market mechanisms for climate change mitigation, energy efficiency and innovations.

Henry Lee is the Jassim M. Jaidah Family Director of the Environment and Natural Resources Program and Co-Chair of the Arctic Initiative in the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School. He is also a Senior Lecturer in Public Policy at HKS.

Before joining HKS in 1979, Lee spent nine years in Massachusetts State Government as Director of the State’s Energy Office and Special Assistant to the Governor for Environmental Policy. He has served on numerous state, federal, and private advisory boards concerning energy and the environment. Lee is a former Chairman of the Massachusetts Stewardship Council, which oversees state parks and recreation facilities. Additionally, he has worked with private and public organizations, including the InterAmerican Development Bank, the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, the State of Sao Paulo, the U.S. Departments of Energy and Interior, the National Research Council, the Intercontinental Energy Corporation, General Electric, and the U.S. EPA.