On March 4^th, 2016, the first International Symposium on “China’s and U.S.’s Environmental Governance” was held in the University of Chicago. The symposium was co-organized by the Center for East Asian Studies (CEAS) at University of Chicago, the Abrams Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School, the Energy Policy Institute at Chicago (EPIC), the Paulson Institute and the Center for Industrial Development and Environmental Governance (CIDEG) at Tsinghua University.

Dr. YANG Dali, Dean of CEAS, hosted the symposium. Prof. Xue Lan, Director of CIDEG, made a welcome speech. He stated that environmental governance has been the main research orientation of CIDEG since its establishment, and now has become a more urgent issue. He hoped that this symposium can be put forward with useful opinions and supported by the scholars, who major in environmental law and environmental economics, from China and U.S. In the other hand, Prof. Mark Templeton, Dean of the Abrams Environmental Law Clinic, and Cynthia Zeltwanger, Executive Director of the Paulson Institute, also made opening remarks. Professor Michael Greenstone, Former Chief Economist of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers delivered a speech. Daniel Farber, Robert Percival, Erin Ryan, Daniel Hemmel, CHEN Ruoying, ZHAO Huiyu attended the symposium.

Michael Greenstone and Koichiro ITO, Assistant Professor at Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, gave a lecture on economic analysis of environmental and energy policy. Professor ZHU Xufeng and Dr. CHEN Ling from the School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University, Dr. QING Hu from the Environmental Defense Fund and Dr. ZHANG Fan from the University of Chicago introduced the decision-making system, bureaucracy and performance of China’s environmental governance respectively.

The 2^nd International Conference will be held in Beijing in June 2016. More experts from industries will be invited and constructive suggestions and research reports will be proposed.