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Gene Ellis

China Exports Pollution to U.S., Study Finds - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • “We’re focusing on the trade impact,” said Mr. Lin, a professor in the department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at Peking University’s School of Physics. “Trade changes the location of production and thus affects emissions.”
  • “Dust, ozone and carbon can accumulate in valleys and basins in California and other Western states,” the statement said.Black carbon is a particular problem because rain does not wash it out of the atmosphere, so it persists across long distances, the statement said. Black carbon is linked to asthma, cancer, emphysema, and heart and lung disease.
  • The study’s scientists also looked at the impact of China’s export industries on its own air quality. They estimated that in 2006, China’s exporting of goods to the United States was responsible for 7.4 percent of production-based Chinese emissions for sulfur dioxide, 5.7 percent for nitrogen oxides, 3.6 percent for black carbon and 4.6 percent for carbon monoxide.
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  • The scholars who gave emissions estimates for China’s export industries, a significant part of the country’s economy, looked at data from 42 sectors that are direct or indirect contributors to emissions. They included steel and cement production, power generation and transportation. Coal-burning factories were the biggest sources of pollutants and greenhouse gases, which contribute to global warming.
    • Gene Ellis
       
      Note:  here they have used input-output coefficients of sectors to calculate the effects...
  • In Japan, for instance, an environmental engineer has attributed a mysterious pestilence that is killing trees on Yakushima Island to pollutants from China.
  • Exports accounted for 24.1 percent of China’s entire economic output last year, down sharply from a peak of 35 percent in 2007, before the global financial crisis began to weaken overseas demand even as China’s domestic economy continued to grow.
  • But the proportion of China’s exports that are made in China has risen steadily in recent years as many companies move more of their supply chains, instead of just having final assembly work done here.
Gene Ellis

China's Hurdle to Fast Action on Climate Change - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • China’s Hurdle to Fast Action on Climate Change
  • Any hopes that American commitments to cut carbon emissions will have a decisive impact on climate change rely on the assumption that China will reciprocate and deliver aggressive emission cuts of its own.
  • Fast economic growth in China and India is projected to fuel a substantial increase in carbon pollution over coming decades, despite big improvements in energy efficiency and the decarbonization of their energy supply
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  • The country accounts for over a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions.
  • Over the next 20 years, China’s CO2 emissions will grow by an amount roughly equal to the United States’ total emissions today,
  • Even assuming that China’s population does not grow at all over the next 30 years, that the energy efficiency of its economy increases at a faster pace than most developed and developing countries and that it manages to decarbonize its energy sources faster than pretty much anybody else, China would still be emitting a lot more carbon in 2040 than it does today, according to E.I.A. calculations.
  • Can the United States or anybody else do anything to speed China down a low-carbon path?
  • The latest report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, issued in April, suggested several ways to allot responsibilities. If one starts counting in the 18th century and counts only emissions from industry and energy generation, the United States is responsible for more than a quarter of all greenhouse gases that humanity has put into the air. China, by contrast, is responsible for 10 percent.But if one starts counting in 1990, when the world first became aware that CO2 was a problem, and includes greenhouse gases emitted from changes in land use, the United States is responsible for only 18 percent, and China’s share rises to 15 percent. Rich and poor countries, unsurprisingly, disagree on the proper measure. Photo
  • Not everybody will meet their Copenhagen pledges. Japan, which unplugged its nuclear energy after the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, will fall behind. So will Canada and Australia, whose new conservative governments have lost interest in the pledges of their predecessors.
Gene Ellis

Why Apple Got a 'Made in U.S.A.' Bug - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • Today, rising energy prices and a global market for computers are changing the way companies make their machines.
  • Hewlett-Packard, which turns out over 50 million computers a year through its own plants and subcontractors, makes many of its larger desktop personal computers in such higher-cost areas as Indianapolis and Tokyo to save on fuel costs and to serve business buyers rapidly.
  • “It’s important that they get an order in five days,
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  • there is a pride for the local consumer to see a sticker that says ‘Made in Tokyo,’
  • Cook is looking to give Apple some good news.
  • A Dell factory in Winston-Salem, N.C., for which Dell received $280 million in incentives from the government, was shut in 2010 (Dell had to repay some of the incentives).
  • In 1998, President Bill Clinton visited a Gateway Computer factory outside Dublin to cheer the role of American manufacturers in the rise of a “Celtic Tiger” in technology.That plant was shut in 2001, when Gateway elected to save costs by manufacturing in China
  • As cheap as a Chinese assembly worker may be, an emerging trend in manufacturing, specialized robots, promises to be even cheaper. The most valuable part of the computer, a motherboard loaded with microprocessors and memory, is already largely made with robots. People do things like fitting in batteries and snapping on screens.
  • The labor cost on a notebook, which is about 4 to 5 percent of the retail price, is only slightly higher than the cost of shipping by air. Soon even that is likely to change because of the twin forces of lower manufacturing costs from automation and higher transportation costs from rising global activity.
  • Intel, which makes most of the processors, has plants in Oregon, Arizona, New Mexico, Israel, Ireland and China.
  • Many other chip companies design their own products and have them made in giant factories, largely in Taiwan and China. Computer screens are made in Taiwan and South Korea, for the most part.
  • The special glass used for the touch screens of Apple’s iPhone and iPad, however, is an exception. It comes primarily from the United States.
  • More recent products, laptops and notebook computers, were in many cases originally assembled in China, and they are still largely made there. So are most smartphones and tablets. Every week, H.P. sends a group of cargo containers filled with notebooks to Europe.
  • That plant was shut in 2001, when Gateway elected to save costs by manufacturing in China. Dell, which made its mark by developing lean manufacturing techniques in Texas, closed its showcase Austin factory in 2008 as part of a companywide move to manufacturing in China. A Dell factory in Winston-Salem, N.C., for which Dell received $280 million in incentives from the government, was shut in 2010 (Dell had to repay some of the incentives).
Gene Ellis

Greece threatens tilt to Russia and China unless Europe yields - Telegraph - 0 views

  • Greece threatens tilt to Russia and China unless Europe yields
  • Greece's radical new government has threatened to seek money from Russia and China to avert a financial crisis rather than yield to austerity demands from Europe,
  • the defence minister
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  • Nikos Chountis, Greece's deputy foreign minister, said on Tuesday that Russia and China had already offered financial support to the country.
  • Cyprus has already caused a political storm by offering to expand Russian access to its ports and airfields – including “military facilities” - though it has stopped short of offering full military bases.
Gene Ellis

As LED Industry Evolves, China Elbows Ahead - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • As LED Industry Evolves, China Elbows Ahead
  • “LED lighting could see itself become the next solar, wind or other future opportunity that the U.S. will have given away by failing to address Chinese industrial policies and unfairly traded products,”
  • SolarWorld, a solar panel maker that complained to the American government about what it considered unfair advantages for Chinese competitors, was later the victim of a cyberattack by Chinese military officials, according to a recent indictment by the Justice Department.
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  • American, European and Chinese regulators have put in effect energy-efficiency rules that phase out the use of incandescent bulbs. Big multinationals that make light bulbs like Philips, Osram and General Electric have responded by embracing light-emitting diodes, which use one-fifth of the electricity of incandescent bulbs and half the electricity of fluorescent bulbs.
  • Many Chinese producers also have a poor and worsening reputation for quality, which may hurt them in the long term.
  • The industry, for instance, is highly segmented.
  • Prices have fallen by nearly half in the last year for low-end, low-wattage LEDs made in China, and by 15 to 20 percent for the higher-wattage versions made elsewhere, buyers and manufacturing executives said.
  • Lighting accounts for about 6 percent of the world’s emissions of greenhouse gases, and LEDs have the potential to steeply reduce them.
  • “We do not buy Chinese LEDs,” said Mike Pugh, the procurement director at Xicato in San Jose, Calif., a large provider of indoor lighting systems for retailers and hotels. “We just can’t take that chance.”
  • Xicato instead buys LEDs from multinationals like Cree of Durham, N.C.; Philips Lumileds, based in San Jose, Calif.; and Osram Opto Semiconductors of Regensburg, Germany.
  • Three-quarters of China’s electricity still comes from burning coal, which contributes to severe air pollution as well as global warming.
  • The Chinese LED industry has created tens of thousands of well-paid jobs for young community college graduates
  • She earns $500 a month plus medical benefits and free food and lodging in an air-conditioned dormitory where employees sleep four to six i
  • the solar and LED industries in China received huge loans at low interest rates from state-owned banks following directives from Beijing
Gene Ellis

China's Economic Empire - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • China has also invested heavily in building infrastructure, undertaking huge hydroelectric projects like the Merowe Dam on the Nile in Sudan — the biggest Chinese engineering project in Africa — and Ecuador’s $2.3 billion Coca Codo Sinclair Dam. And China is currently involved in the building of more than 200 other dams across the planet, according to International Rivers, a nonprofit environmental organization.
  • China has become the world’s leading exporter; it also surpassed the United States as the world’s biggest trading nation in 2012.
  • annual investment from China to the European Union grew from less than $1 billion annually before 2008 to more than $10 billion in the past two years. And in the United States, investment surged from less than $1 billion in 2008 to a record high of $6.7 billion in 2012, according to the Rhodium Group, an economic research firm. Last year, Europe was the destination for 33 percent of China’s foreign direct investment.
Gene Ellis

The problem with TTIP | vox - 0 views

  • The problem with TTIP
  • The TPP is a deep international integration arrangement between the US and 11 other Pacific states, which would cover 40% of world GDP and over 30% of world trade. It seeks to address as series of issues that 21st century commerce, but arguably its most obvious feature is that it excludes China – the world’s largest international trader and before long the world’s largest economy. There are, of course, the ritual genuflections towards ‘open regionalism’ – China can join if only it will agree to the necessary policy requirements – but this is about as much use as saying the Chief Rabbi can dine with you while insisting that the menu contains pork.
  • By signing TTIP Europe would be tying itself to a static rather than a dynamic part of the world economy and substantially reinforcing the US’s exclusionary policies.
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  • In the areas that are sound, it is mainly that TPP members will probably have to approach the US norms faster than desirable, and possibly faster than they can effectively administer. But there are also areas in which the TPP is not in the interests of most non-US members.
  • However, it is generally accepted that TTIP is more important to Europe than to the US, which greatly strengthens the US’s hand in negotiations.
  • it is widely accepted that the deeper intra-European integration fostered by the Single Market initiative was a major contributor to European prosperity between 1992 and 2007
  • he US has strongly promoted Investor-State Dispute Arbitration in which foreign-owned private firms can seek settlements against governments for taking actions that are not prohibited by the agreements but which reduce the value of investments that the firms have made in member countries.
  • For states that do not have a lot of, say, social or environmental legislation at the time TPP is signed, Investor-State Arbitration threatens to make progress in these dimensions difficult.
  • f China, India or Brazil felt that these disciplines were too arduous or just did not fit, the world trading system would be effectively be split with arguably the most dynamic areas excluded. And given that the TPP would be attractive to smaller economies and that the latter would probably be offered quite accommodating terms, the split would probably deepen rather than the opposite.
  • This reads very much like an agreement to cooperate to make sure that outcomes in the trading system are as the US and EU want them – and with around half of world GDP between them and a further 15% in the rest of TPP, it suggests that the choice facing other will be capitulation vs. exclusion. I fear the latter.
  • Champions of the multilateral system must be much more explicit about its virtues and value – and among these I include Europe (middle-sized countries with a strong belief in negotiated outcomes and order) and China (which has been a massive beneficiary of open markets and non-discrimination to date).
  • urope had better get on with an internally driven liberalisation, especially of services and utilities markets, to stimulate the recovery quite independent of the outside pressures of a trade negotiation;
Gene Ellis

China - Three Gorges Dam - Impact - New York Times - 0 views

  • Just last year, China added 102 gigawatts of generating capacity, as much as the entire capacity of France.
Gene Ellis

The Insourcing Boom - Charles Fishman - The Atlantic - 0 views

shared by Gene Ellis on 19 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • The magic is in that head: GE has put a small heat pump up there, and the GeoSpring pulls ambient heat from the air to help heat water. As a result, the GeoSpring uses some 60 percent less electricity than a typical water heater. (You can also control it using your iPhone.)
  • The GeoSpring is an innovative product in a mature category
  • We really had zero communications into the assembly line there.”
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  • The team eliminated 1 out of every 5 parts. It cut the cost of the materials by 25 percent.
  • the team cut the work hours necessary to assemble the water heater from 10 hours in China to two hours in Louisville.
  • Time-to-market has also improved, greatly.
  • four weeks on the boat from China and one week dockside to clear customs.
  • Total time from factory to warehouse: 30 minutes.
  • there is an inherent understanding that moves out when you move the manufacturing out. And you never get it back.”
  • At the end of the day, they say, ‘If we were doing this for the U.S. market, we should never have gone to China in the first place.’ ”
  • But the logic of onshoring today goes even further—and is driven, in part, by the newfound impatience of the product cycle itself.
  • Just a few years ago, the design of a new range or refrigerator was assumed to last seven years. Now, says Lou Lenzi, GE’s managers figure no model will be good for more than two or three years.
  • Products that once seemed mature—from stoves to greeting cards—are being reinvigorated with cheap computing technology.
Gene Ellis

In Push to Assert Rights, China Plans to Send 2nd Oil Rig to Waters Near Vietnam - NYTi... - 0 views

  • In Push to Assert Rights, China Plans to Send 2nd Oil Rig to Waters Near Vietnam
  • though in fact many were owned by proprietors based in Taiwan
Gene Ellis

China, Trying to Bolster Its Claims, Plants Islands in Disputed Waters - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • Officials say Johnson South Reef, which China seized in 1988 after killing about 70 Vietnamese soldiers or sailors in a skirmish, is the most developed of the islands so far.
Gene Ellis

Learning about global value chains by looking beyond official trade data: Part 1 | vox - 0 views

  • Gross trade accounting: A transparent method to discover global value chain-related information behind official trade data: Part 1
  • With the rapid increase in intermediate trade flows, trade economists and policymakers have reached a near consensus that official trade statistics based on gross terms are deficient, often hiding the extent of global value chains. There is also widespread recognition among the official international statistics agencies that fragmentation of global production requires a new approach to measure trade, in particular the need to measure trade in value-added. This led the WTO and the OECD to launch a joint “Measuring Trade in Value-Added” initiative on 15 March 2012, which is designed to mainstream the production of trade in value-added statistics and make them a permanent part of the statistical landscape.
  • All the estimation methods used in recent efforts to measure trade in value-added are rooted in Leontief (1936). His work demonstrated that the amount and type of intermediate inputs needed in the production of one unit of output can be estimated based on the input-output structures across countries and industries.
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  • If one is only interested in estimating the domestic value-added embedded in a country’s or sector’s gross exports, applying Leontief’s insight is sufficient. However, for many economic and policy applications, one also needs to quantify other components in gross exports and their structures. In such circumstances Leontief’s original insight is not sufficient, as it does not provide a way to decompose intermediate trade flows across countries into various value-added terms according to their final absorption,
  • Our gross trade accounting framework in fact allows one to further decompose each of the four major parts of gross exports above into finer components with economic interpretations
  • By the gross statistics, presented in column 1 of Table 1, the trade is highly imbalanced – Chinese exports to the US ($176.9 billion in 2011) are five times that of US exports to China ($35.1 billion in 2011). If we separate exports of final goods and of intermediate goods (reported in columns 2a and 2b of Table 1), we see that most of the Chinese exports consist of final goods, whereas most of the US exports consist of intermediate goods.
  • In other words, the US exports rely overwhelmingly on its own value-added (only 2.1% from China and 5.8% from other countries in 2011), whereas the Chinese exports use more foreign value-added, especially value-added from third countries (with 3.2% from the US and 23.1% from Japan, Korea, and all other countries).
  • As a consequence of these differences in the structure of value-added composition, the China–US trade balance in this sector looks much smaller when computed in terms of domestic value-added than in terms of gross exports.
  • By identifying which parts of the official data are double counted and the sources of the double counting, our gross trade accounting method provides a transparent way to bridge official trade statistics (in gross terms) and national accounts (in value-added terms) consistent with the System of National Accounts standard.
Gene Ellis

If You Think China's Air Is Bad ... - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • If You Think China’s Air Is Bad
  • China contains only about 7 percent of the world’s fresh water while sustaining nearly 20 percent of its population. In stark contrast, Lake Michigan in the United States holds about 4 percent of the world’s freshwater (the Great Lakes combined contain about 20 percent).
  • Water levels in the Mekong Delta reached their lowest levels in 50 years in 2010,
Gene Ellis

This one number explains how China is taking over the world - 0 views

  • This one number explains how China is taking over the world
Gene Ellis

Tencent, Foxconn & China Harmony Unite to Build Smart Cars - Analyst Blog - NASDAQ.com - 0 views

  • Tencent, Foxconn & China Harmony Unite to Build Smart Cars - Analyst Blog
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