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Transportation & Urban Environment

2018 Jun 20

China's Environmental Challenges 2018: Summer Undergraduate Research Assistantships in China

Wed Jun 20 (All day) to Thu Aug 16 (All day)

Location: 

Beijing, China
The Harvard-China Project on Energy, Economy and Environment, in conjunction with the Harvard Global Institute, provides generous financial support for seven Harvard undergraduates to spend the summer in China conducting research on China’s energy and environmental future under the guidance of an English-speaking professor at a leading university, from June 20 to August 16, 2018. The China Project solicited a variety of... Read more about China's Environmental Challenges 2018: Summer Undergraduate Research Assistantships in China
Jing

Commentary: Can Unlucky Number 4 Be Lucky Too? How the Chinese Superstition About “4” Made Possible a Study on the Health Effects of Air Pollution in Beijing

August 14, 2018

It is rarely possible to conduct controlled experiments in the social sciences owing to the vast number of variables that, in a “real-world” setting, can almost never be manipulated to create the ideal experimental conditions. However, there are occasionally instances when the unintended effects of certain policies create circumstances that are like an experiment, called a natural experiment. When the combination of a vehicle restriction policy in Beijing and the Chinese superstition about the...

Read more about Commentary: Can Unlucky Number 4 Be Lucky Too? How the Chinese Superstition About “4” Made Possible a Study on the Health Effects of Air Pollution in Beijing
EV in China

Financial Times Cites Recent China Project Study Exploring Environmental Implications of Electric Vehicle Charging in China

May 23, 2018

A Financial Times article examining the sometimes-ambiguous environmental benefits of electric vehicles in China, whose energy market has yet to fully transition out of being fossil fuel-dominated, cites the findings of a China Project study... Read more about Financial Times Cites Recent China Project Study Exploring Environmental Implications of Electric Vehicle Charging in China

China Project Spring 2018 Newsletter

China Project Spring 2018 Newsletter

May 22, 2018

This spring the Harvard-China Project continued its investigations of the “China 2030/2050” theme sponsored by the Harvard Global Institute (HGI). Our community explored a number of pressing issues, including a Nature Energy paper on the environmental implications of electric vehicle charging in China. The research, which offers a strategy for reducing CO2 emissions and improving air quality with electric vehicles in Beijing, was authored by a Harvard-Tsinghua...

Read more about China Project Spring 2018 Newsletter
Xinyu Chen, Zhiwei Xu, Chris P Nielsen, and Michael B. McElroy. 2018. “Impacts of fleet types and charging modes for electric vehicles on emissions under different penetrations of wind power.” Nature Energy, 3, Pp. 413-421. Publisher's VersionAbstract
Current Chinese policy promotes the development of both electricity-propelled vehicles and carbon-free sources of power. Concern has been expressed that electric vehicles on average may emit more CO2 and conventional pollutants in China. Here, we explore the environmental implications of investments in different types of electric vehicle (public buses, taxis and private light-duty vehicles) and different modes (fast or slow) for charging under a range of different wind penetration levels. To do this, we take Beijing in 2020 as a case study and employ hourly simulation of vehicle charging behaviour and power system operation. Assuming the slow-charging option, we find that investments in electric private light-duty vehicles can result in an effective reduction in the emission of CO2 at several levels of wind penetration. The fast-charging option, however, is counter-productive. Electrifying buses and taxis offers the most effective option to reduce emissions of NO x , a major precursor for air pollution.
Chenghe Guan. 2018. “Urban form and digitalization of urban design.” Urban Planning International. Publisher's VersionAbstract
In the mid-18 Century, John Snow utilized spatial data analysis to trace the source of a cholera outbreak in London. His methods established the fundamental theory of using urban morphological study to solve practical urban issues. Accompanied by rapid innovation, technological improvement, and increasing computational power, urban morphology has been widely applied to digitalization of urban design. Through the urban form elements proposed by Kevin Lynch, this paper introduces the development of urban morphology in relation to digitalization of urban design in education, design practice and academic research. This paper adopts a variety of international case studies and discusses the importance of urban form and digitalization of urban design at a global scale.
2018 Feb 12

Q&A Session: China's Environmental Challenges 2018: Summer Undergraduate Research Assistantships in China

5:00pm to 6:00pm

Location: 

Pierce Hall 100F, 29 Oxford Street, Cambridge

Interested in researching in China this summer? Join Harvard-China Project staff and a participating Tsinghua University professor to learn more about our research assistantships opportunity.

The Harvard-China Project on Energy, Economy and Environment will provide generous financial support for six Harvard undergraduates to spend the summer in China conducting research on China’s energy and environmental future under the guidance of an English-speaking professor at a leading university, from June 15 to August 16, 2018....

Read more about Q&A Session: China's Environmental Challenges 2018: Summer Undergraduate Research Assistantships in China
2017 Nov 28

Film Screening of "Plastic China" and Q&A with Director WANG Jiuliang

6:30pm to 8:45pm

Location: 

CGIS South, Tsai Auditorium, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA

plastic china partial poster

After the screening, Director WANG Jiuliang will attend via Skype for a Q&A with the audience moderated by Professor ZHANG Ling of Boston College and the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. The discussion will be interpreted by Canaan Morse, a Ph.D. candidate in Chinese Literature at Harvard. ... Read more about Film Screening of "Plastic China" and Q&A with Director WANG Jiuliang

MEP meeting

High-Level Meetings with Ministers Xie and Li

August 30, 2017

On August 4, China’s lead official on climate change, Minister XIE Zhenhua, hosted a research and policy consultation with Profs. Mike McELROY, Steve WOFSY, executive director Chris NIELSEN, and Project alumni Dr. ZHANG Hongjun (Holland & Knight, LLP) and Prof. LU Xi (Tsinghua University) at his offices in Beijing. Discussion topics included the state of U.S.-China engagement on climate and the growing role of subnational governments, disparate regional capacities for carbon control within China... Read more about High-Level Meetings with Ministers Xie and Li

Nan Zhong, Jing Cao, and Yuzhu Wang. 2017. “Traffic congestion, ambient air pollution and health: Evidence from driving restrictions in Beijing.” Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, 4, 3, Pp. 821–856. Publisher's VersionAbstract

Vehicles have recently overtaken coal to become the largest source of air pollution in urban China. Research on mobile sources of pollution has foundered due both to inaccessibility of Chinese data on health outcomes and strong identifying assumptions. To address these, we collect daily ambulance call data from the Beijing Emergency Medical Center and combine them with an idiosyncratic feature of a driving restriction policy in Beijing that references the last digit of vehicles’ license plate numbers. Because the number 4 is considered unlucky by many in China, it tends to be avoided on license plates. As a result, days on which the policy restricts license plates ending in 4 unintentionally allow more vehicles in Beijing. Leveraging this variation, we find that traffic congestion is indeed 22% higher on days banning 4 and that 24-hour average concentration of NO2 is 12% higher. Correspondingly, these short term increases in pollution increase ambulance calls by 12% and 3% for fever and heart related symptoms, while no effects are found for injuries. These findings suggest that traffic congestion has substantial health externalities in China but that they are also responsive to policy. 

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The Harvard-China Project receives major support from the Harvard Global Institute on the theme of 'China 2030/2050: Energy and Environmental Challenges for the Future.'

Harvard-China Project
Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Pierce Hall
29 Oxford Street
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