Gang He and Richard Morse examine one of the biggest controversies in the global carbon market - the additionality of Chinese wind power in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).   Addressing and moving beyond the binary question of whether such projects do or do not represent "real" CO2 reductions, they use insights drawn from detailed analysis of the entire Chinese wind CDM portfolio to argue that the current legal and economic structure of additionality is unworkable in the Chinese power sector when one takes into account how regulation and policy in those markets actually function. 

Therefore under the current CDM additionality regime, additionality cannot be credibly verified for Chinese wind - a problem that extends to multiple types of energy projects in numerous developing countries.  In short, the controversy over Chinese wind illustrates the need for large-scale reforms of how the world validates carbon credits in developing world power sectors.  In a post-Kyoto world that envisions a greatly expanded role for international carbon offsets, ensuring the integrity of carbon markets through smarter policy engagement with countries like China is more important than ever.

Abstract
One of the biggest themes of the 21st century is interconnection -- specifically, the interconnection of people and data.  These interconnections can change everything about how we see the world, how the world sees us, and how we work together.  Where some people might see "big brother," I see empowerment -- empowerment of groups and individuals to improve quality of life and reduce our impact on the planet. 

Megan Smith oversees teams that manage early-stage partnerships, explorations and technology licensing. She also leads the Google.org team, guiding strategy and developing new partnerships and internal projects with Google's engineering and product teams. She joined Google in 2003 and has led several of the company's acquisitions, including Keyhole (Google Earth), Where2Tech (Google Maps), and Picasa. She also co-led the company's early work with publishers for Google Book Search. Previously, Megan was the CEO and, earlier, COO of PlanetOut, the leading gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender online community. Under her leadership, PlanetOut grew tenfold in reach and revenue. Prior to that, Megan was at General Magic for six years working on handheld communications products and partnerships. She also worked in multimedia at Apple Japan in Tokyo.

Over the years, Megan has contributed to a wide range of engineering projects, such as designing an award-winning bicycle lock; working on a space station construction research project that eventually flew on the U.S. space shuttle; and running a field-research study on solar cookstoves in South America. She was also a member of the MIT-Solectria student team that designed, built, and raced a solar car in the first cross-continental solar car race, covering 2000 miles of the Australian outback. She was selected as one of the 100 World Economic Forum technology pioneers for 2001 and 2002.

Megan holds a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in mechanical engineering from MIT, where she now serves on the board. She completed her master's thesis work at the MIT Media Lab.

Summary of the Seminar
Megan Smith, Vice President, New Business Development and General Manager, Google.org., argued that greater interconnectedness achieved by information technology is a major liberating force in the world. Whether it is aiding the coordination of protests or increasing transparency of governments, the exchange of information has huge benefits. This is not a new phenomenon. In places where people have been able to exchange information easily, social progress has followed. Megan cited the example of Seneca Falls, New York where the canal system allowed for extensive communication; it became significant in both the women's rights and abolition movements.

While a large proportion of the world is benefiting from greater interconnectedness, Africa still lacks the infrastructure to take full advantage. Submarine fiber optic cables are necessary for quick and cheap internet cables and many African countries, particularly in the east, are not connected to these, relying instead on satellites. This is likely to change over the next few years, bringing great potential for further development.

The mission of Google.org is to use technology to drive solutions to global challenges such as climate change, pandemic disease and poverty. The organization was set up as part of a commitment to devote approximately one percent of Google's equity plus one percent of annual profits to philanthropy, along with employee time.  Google.org now places its strategic focus on those projects that can leverage the resources of Google staff, particularly its engineers.

Current projects that harness the power of information include:

• Google Flu Trends: This uses aggregated Google search data to estimate flu activity up to two weeks earlier than traditional methods. This system has almost 90% accuracy in real time flu prediction and is therefore an extremely useful tool for health delivery agencies. It is now being used in 30 countries. Google is also starting to work in Cambodia to collect data around SARS.
• Google Power Meter provides a system for consumers to understand their in-home energy use and to take steps to reducing this. The Meter receives information from utility smart meters and in-home energy management devices and visualizes this information on iGoogle (a personalized Google homepage).The premise underlying this project is that greater information is going to be crucial to tackling climate change and consumers ought to be able to be empowered to make informed decisions about their energy use.
• Disaster relief: In response to the Haitian earthquake, a team of engineers worked with the U.S. Department of State to create an online People Finder gadget so that people can submit information about missing persons and to search the database. Google Earth satellite images have also been used to document the extent of damage.

Some 700,000 Koreans, 40,000 Chinese and 35,000 Allied POWs performed forced labor for private companies within Japan during the Asia Pacific War. Kyushu coal mines were a wartime center of this injustice and Fukuoka is a major locus of ongoing redress efforts, which the presenter has closely observed. A front-row account of the interaction between community activists in Japan, Korea, China and North America will be provided and key results will be discussed. The Japanese government has been prodded into sending the remains of Korean labor conscripts to South Korea and handing over the long-suppressed records that Seoul needs to fully implement its own compensation program. Lawsuits in Japanese courts stemming from forced labor by Chinese proved partially successful, raising expectations that more Japanese firms may voluntarily settle the especially strong Chinese claims. Amid the controversy surrounding former Prime Minister Aso's admission that there were POWs at Aso Mining, Japan issued new official apologies and is expanding a POW reconciliation program. Fluid networks of independent researchers and Internet-empowered activists continue to influence developments within Japan's changing political landscape. This transnational grassroots activism also faces barriers and limitations.

Mr. Underwood's doctoral research at Kyushu University analyzed the reparations movement for Chinese forced labor in Japan during World War Two, locating it within the global trend toward repairing historical injustices. His articles for The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus (www.japanfocus.org) provide the fullest descriptions of forced labor redress activities involving Chinese as well as Korean victims. He played a key role in forcing former Japanese Prime Minister Aso Taro to admit there were Allied POWs at Aso Mining during the war. His Web site is www.williamunderwood.org.

The Stanford China Program in cooperation with the Center for East Asian Studies will host a special series of seminars to mark 60 Years of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Over the course of the winter and spring terms, we will have six leading scholars, each examining one of the six decades of the PRC's history. Our premise is that history matters. The speaker on each decade will characterize their decade, note shifts within that time, identify the pivotal events, and discuss how the decade shaped what happened afterwards.

Jospeh Fewsmith is the author of four books: China Since Tiananmen: The Politics of Transition (2001), Elite Politics in Contemporary China (2001), The Dilemmas of Reform in China: Political Conflict and Economic Debate (1994), and Party, State, and Local Elites in Republican China: Merchant Organizations and Politics in Shanghai, 1980-1930 (1985). He is very active in the China field, traveling to China frequently and presenting papers at professional conferences such as the Association for Asian Studies and the American Political Science Association. His articles have appeared in such journals as Asian Survey, Comparative Studies in Society and History, The China Journal, The China Quarterly, Current History, The Journal of Contemporary China, Problems of Communism, and Modern China. He is also a research associate of the John King Fairbank Center for East Asian Studies at Harvard University.

The Stanford China Program in cooperation with the Center for East Asian Studies will host a special series of seminars to mark 60 Years of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Over the course of the winter and spring terms, we will have six leading scholars, each examining one of the six decades of the PRC's history. Our premise is that history matters. The speaker on each decade will characterize their decade, note shifts within that time, identify the pivotal events, and discuss how the decade shaped what happened afterwards.

Barry Naughton is an authority on the Chinese economy, with an emphasis on issues relating to industry, trade, finance, and China's transition to a market economy. Recent research focuses on regional economic growth in the People's Republic of China and the relationship between foreign trade and investment and regional growth. He is also completing a general textbook on the Chinese economy. Recently completed projects have focused on Chinese trade and technology, in particular, the relationship between the development of the electronics industry in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, and the growth of trade and investment among those economies. His book, Growing Out of the Plan: Chinese Economic Reform, 1978-1993, which was published in 1995, is a comprehensive study of China's development from a planned to a market economy that traces the distinctive strategy of transition followed by China, as well as China's superior growth performance. It received the Ohira Memorial Prize in 1996. Naughton is the author of numerous articles on the Chinese economy and is editor or co-editor of three other books: Reforming Asian Socialism: The Growth of Market Institutions, Urban Spaces in Contemporary China, and The China Circle: Economics and Technology in the PRC, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Naughton joined IR/PS in 1988 and was named to the Sokwanlok Chair in Chinese International Affairs in 1998.

The Stanford China Program in cooperation with the Center for East Asian Studies will host a special series of seminars to mark 60 Years of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Over the course of the winter and spring terms, we will have six leading scholars, each examining one of the six decades of the PRC's history. Our premise is that history matters. The speaker on each decade will characterize their decade, note shifts within that time, identify the pivotal events, and discuss how the decade shaped what happened afterwards.

Andrew Walder is the Denise O'Leary and Kent Thiry Professor in the Department of Sociology at Stanford, where he is also a Senior Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). He is currently the Director of the Division of International, Comparative and Area Studies in Stanford's School of Humanities and Sciences, and in past years has served as Chair of Stanford's Department of Sociology and Director of FSI's Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.  

A political sociologist, Walder has long specialized on the sources of conflict, stability and change in communist regimes and their successor states. His current research focuses on changes in the ownership and control of large Chinese corporations and the parallel emergence of a new corporate elite with varied ties to state agencies. He also continues his research interest in Mao-era China, with a focus on the mass politics of the Cultural Revolution of 1966-1969.

The Stanford China Program in cooperation with the Center for East Asian Studies will host a special series of seminars to mark 60 Years of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Over the course of the winter and spring terms, we will have six leading scholars, each examining one of the six decades of the PRC's history. Our premise is that history matters. The speaker on each decade will characterize their decade, note shifts within that time, identify the pivotal events, and discuss how the decade shaped what happened afterwards.

Professor Teiwes is a scholar with an international reputation in his main area of research, Chinese elite politics. He has written extensively on re-evaluations of Chinese Communist Party history, 1935-76, and is currently researching leadership politics in the post-Mao era. His wider areas of interest lie in Chinese politics more broadly, communist and post-communist systems, the international communist movement, and American foreign policy. He is the author of several works, including Politics and Purges in China (1979, 2nd ed. 1993), Politics at Mao's Court (1990), The Tragedy of Lin Biao (1996), China's Road to Disaster (1999), and The End of the Maoist Era (2007) (the latter three studies co-authored with Warren Sun).

The Stanford China Program in cooperation with the Center for East Asian Studies will host a special series of seminars to mark 60 Years of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Over the course of the winter and spring terms, we will have six leading scholars, each examining one of the six decades of the PRC's history. Our premise is that history matters. The speaker on each decade will characterize their decade, note shifts within that time, identify the pivotal events, and discuss how the decade shaped what happened afterwards.

Roderick MacFarquhar is the Leroy B. Williams Professor of History and Political Science and formerly Director of the John King Fairbank Center for East Asian Research. His publications include The Hundred Flowers Campaign and the Chinese Intellectuals, The Sino-Soviet Dispute, China under Mao; Sino-American Relations, 1949-1971; The Secret Speeches of Chairman Mao; the final two volumes of the Cambridge History of China (edited with the late John Fairbank); The Politics of China 2nd Ed: The Eras of Mao and Deng; and a trilogy, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution. He was the founding editor of "The China Quarterly, and has been a fellow at Columbia University, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the Royal Institute for International Affairs. In previous personae, he has been a journalist, a TV commentator, and a Member of Parliament. His most recent, jointly-authored book on the Cultural Revolution entitled Mao's Last Revolution was published by the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press in 2006.

The Stanford China Program in cooperation with the Center for East Asian Studies will host a special series of seminars to mark 60 Years of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Over the course of the winter and spring terms, we will have six leading scholars, each examining one of the six decades of the PRC's history. Our premise is that history matters. The speaker on each decade will characterize their decade, note shifts within that time, identify the pivotal events, and discuss how the decade shaped what happened afterwards.

David Bachman is Professor of Chinese Domestic and Foreign Politics and US-China Relations at the Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington. He received his BA in History at Swathmore College and both his MA and Ph.D in Political Science at Stanford University.