Decoupling Crisis: Subnational Climate Action and 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.