“Harper is the last leader of the Group of Eight to visit China, and Chinese leaders have barely visited Canada since Harper took office,” said Jin Canrong, vice dean of the School of International Studies at Renmin University of China.

In a fit of excitement, the Chinese government has dropped the pork ban on Canadian pork that has been in place since the word “Swine” was attached to the word “Flu” that somehow showed up on an Albertan farm.  Now that everybody’s got H1N1, I guess the ban just doesn’t seem so important now.  Or maybe it’s the warming relations.  Regardless, I guess the Prime Minister is probably licking his lips at the thought of a nice Canadian pork chop or – even better – some Canadian yu xiang rou si.  I sure am.

And what do we hope to accomplish?

Well, as the Toronto Star astutely points out, “Harper is no visionary Pierre Trudeau, or Jean Chrétien Team Canada deal-seeker.”  That’s not big news.  The interesting bit is that:

Canadian officials are working overtime to keep expectations in check. It’s all about “building relationships and strengthening ties” as Canada prepares to chair the Group of Eight next year, host the G-20, and mark 40 years of diplomatic relations with China.

Well, let’s see what happens.  It seems that China is willing to give everybody a chance, even guys like Stephen Harper who have hugged the DL and seem to enjoy poking China in the eye about human rights.  So, let’s see if Harper has gotten the message and does actually manage to open up a new phase of warm and happy feelings between China and Canada.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/2009-11/26/content_9058050.htm

BEIJING: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will attend the climate summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, next month.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang made the announcement on Thursday at a regular press conference.

How will other world leaders (especially political ones) view this?

Or maybe the next story we’ll here is that Hu Jintao will attend?  After all, China has just announced it’s 40-45% reduction in energy intensity by 2020 targets.

Anyway, even if Stephen Harper comes, what will he bring with him?  Here’s Canada’s position on the Environment Canada website.

Update: China Daily reports today that Premier Wen Jiabao will attend the Copenhagen talks

Four streams:

1. Biofuels
   1. Forest-based products
   2. grassland conversion and land use change
   3. second generation biofuels and policy implications
2. low carbon fuel standards
   1. how to incorporate the ecological risks of low carbon fuel standards into effective climate change mitigation policy?  Is this problem solvable?
3. Registries
   1. What are the practical issues for registries in developing countries?  How do you deal with incomplete data, and what level of precision is needed?
   2. Why should organizations in developing countries join registries?  What’s the benefit and what are the drawbacks?
4. Arctic peoples
   1. What role do arctic peoples have in defining their own vutures?  How will their cultures help them to adapt?  What innovative strategies or tactics are emerging in these places tha could be mimicked in the south?
   2. What are the major changes going on in the arctic?  What can science tell us, and what is traditional knowledge telling us?  Does the difference matter?
   We’ll start posting introductions to these topics over the next few days leading up to the conference, and post regularly as they are discussed throughout the event, Dec 7-19.

At the height of this ridiculous blockage in China, I couldn’t access Canada’s website in Beijing: I tried on my own computer and my office computer, took my Ipod Touch and laptop to various locations around the city, and had the same result of other blocked sites.   I even tried to get there using the GPRS internet on my mobile phone.  No luck.  I had spoken to a journalist in Beijing, and for some reason he could go to canada.gc.ca, but others I asked to test for me couldn’t.  Really bizzare.

Anyway, I’m glad that the site is back, there is some information I need on there.  But the more disturbing question is: why was a national website allowed to be blocked in China?  If it’s a snub, I’d like to know why… if it was just carelessness on China’s part, well…I think Canada needs to reevaluate (again) it’s position in China.  If it was carelessness, Canada’s profile is clearly still not high enough to warrant being on a “White list” with China’s censors.

Canada has the ability to be a leader in so many ways with respect to global issues, if it has the desire.  But if our national website is blocked to 1/5 of the world’s population in China, it’s going to be very hard to do anything at all.

Furthermore, the website has been blocked for a couple of days, at least…and it’s still not fixed.  The people I contacted at the embassy didn’t seem to know much about it, but maybe I contacted the wrong people, so I won’t blame them.

What’s going on on canada.gc.ca?

http://feeds.feedburner.com/Sinocanadian

Thanks!

Where in the past, waste-to-energy meant simply burning trash to create heat for steam turbines, gasification uses ultra-high temperatures and a zero-oxygen environment to break materials into their basic atomic elements, and recombine the carbon into carbon monoxide which is useful for all sorts of chemical and energy reactions, including conversion into fischer-tropsch liquids, methanol or through combustion, to electricity.

Combustion produces nasty by-products such as dioxins which have made waste incineration not just politically unpopular, but also dangerous for public health.  Gasification, on the other hand, completely destroys hazardous organic chemicals, while making other contaminants relatively easy to collect.  In the meantime, gasification collects all the carbon into a useful energy product, meaning that there are no direct carbon emissions resulting from the destruction of garbage.

So far, gasification hasn’t made a big spash in China outside the coal-to-methanol sphere which, let’s admit, is not exactly a low-carbon energy.

But let’s look at this.  China is interested in energy security — particularly petroleum security.  It’s got lots of garbage.  It’s interested in a low carbon economy.  Waste-to-fuel would seem to be a key technology for reducing GHG emissions from the transport sector, which China (and the rest of the world) are struggling immensely with.

There’s got to be a place for Canada somewhere in this equation.

What needs to happen?

As it stands right now, the fuel supply in China is tightly controlled.  Only 5 plants can produce bioethanol and sell it into the PetroChina / SinoPec fuel distribution networks. The reason for this is that the government is worried about all of China’s food supply being used to make fuel ethanol by small, uncontrollable companies.  Government doesn’t even want to deal with small biodiesel producers, who barely make a dent in China’s diesel demand.

In order to sell clean fuels to market, some policy changes need to be made, which will allow particular, certified producers of clean fuels to sell their fuels into the national fuel distribution system.  Such a policy should include criteria for fuel sustainability, technological and economic feasibility, lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions, etc.  It should also include a verification system so that companies can be monitored to ensure that food is not being used to make ethanol to sell into the distribution system.

If change is going to happen, we need a good policy analysis with a complete policy suggestion (which iCET is currently working on), a technology provider, and importantly, an investor who is ready to put his/her money where his/her mouth is.  It’s the best way to get a meeting with the powers that be, and the best way to make change for cleaner transport fuels in China.

I recently took the direct flight from Beijing to New York, and Air China is the only operator that does it. And you pay dearly for the privilage of sitting in their tightly cramped seats for 13 hours.

It wasn’t just the seats.

Flight CA981 leaves Beijing at 1:50 in the afternoon, which is quite a reasonable time, and actually, as far as I know, we left on time.  It wasn’t long, however, before we discovered the interior of the old 747 Jumbo had some problems, and I can’t figure out why they weren’t dealt with before we took off:  I think they would have been easy to recognize long before the flight left Beijing:

1. The reading lights were broken.  My section had no reading lights, the section ahead of me had reading lights whether they wanted them or not.  For the whole flight (at least during the times when the cabin lights were turned off, which was most of the time), I couldn’t read — couldn’t do anything really, but twiddle my thumbs.  Watch the movie you say?  See #2:
2. The entertainment system is terrible.  Not only are there no in-seat TVs which I have expected as a standard on long haul flights now (call me spoiled?) but there were only two movies planned for the whole 13 hour flight.  The rest of the time, we watched the flight progress on the GPS map.  Very exciting.  Oh, and the in-flight exercise film, which I do really enjoy, was played 4 or 5 times.  Even though I enjoy it, I eventually lost interest.
3. The flight attendants continually missed seats or rows in the service of food and drinks.  I thought this kind of service would have been standardized practice, but no, I had to jump over my neighbour and ask for my meal. Why not push the attendant button?  See #4.
4. The attendant button was broken.
5. The selection of drinks is abysmal.  Great Wall red and white vinegar wine, or Pepsi or Yanjing Beer (the beer is fine).  Compared to other airlines, however, my tastes were not satisfied.

So, you say, I got what I paid for?  Well no.  Air China is the only airline that operates direct flights between New York and Beijing.  And they make you pay for it.  My round trip economy-class ticket was 11,600 RMB.  The closest competitor, which has a stop over somewhere was abour 9,000.  The cheapest ticket, on China Eastern, is about 6,000 RMB including tax.  I wouldn’t expect little bottles of Baileys with fresh brewed coffee on that flight, but we will see, because I’ll take China Eastern next time, I think.

The return flight was somewhat better.  The entertainment system was half decent, but the attendants continued to miss seats and people in the distribution of meals and other services.  Oh well.

What’s it all mean, folks?  I think Chinese people need to expect more from their national airline.  You can’t accept half-baked service just because “China is a developing country.”  Vote with your feet and your pocketbooks, take some other airlines, and force Air China to put on a better face for China!