Tuesday, February 12, 2013 | 10:30 PM EST - 10:30 PM EST
, New York, NY
As the greatest coal producing and consuming nation in the world, China would seem an unlikely haven for wind power. Yet the country now boasts a world-class industry that promises to make low-carbon technology more affordable and available to all. In Green Innovation in China: China's Wind Power Industry and the Global Transition to a Low-Carbon Economy, Joanna Lewis focuses on China’s specific methods of international technology transfer, its forms of international cooperation and competition, and its implementation of effective policies that have promoted the development of a home-grown wind power industry. Joanna Lewis discussed her new book at a National Committee program on February 21 at Cleary Gottlieb.BIOJoanna Lewis is an assistant professor of Science, Technology and International affairs (STIA) at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. Her research examines technology acquisition and innovation strategies for energy leapfrogging, drawing from cases of renewable energy development in the emerging economies. Focused primarily on China, her work combines approaches from energy systems and policy analysis, global environmental politics, and technology transfer and innovation studies. Current projects include an examination of US-China cross border technology innovation in clean energy research and development, the evolving nature of US-China relations on energy and climate, China’s climate change mitigation and adaptation options and approaches, and an analysis of the implications of emerging international renewable energy trade conflicts. Her work has appeared in journals such as Energy Policy, the International Journal of Technology and Globalization, the China Environment Series, International Affairs and the Washington Quarterly, as well as in numerous edited volumes on environmental policy and on contemporary Chinese politics. She has conducted extensive research on international technology transfer in China’s wind power industry, and her first book, Green Innovation in China: China's Wind Power Industry and the Global Transition to a Low-Carbon Economy, was published by Columbia University Press in late 2012. Dr. Lewis also serves as an international adviser to the Energy Foundation China Sustainable Energy Program in Beijing, and is a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report. She was a member of the National Academies Committee on U.S.-China Cooperation on Electricity from Renewables and has consulted for many domestic and international organizations including UNIDO and USAID. She serves on the Advisory Boards of the Asia Society's Center on U.S.-China Relations and the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE)’s U.S.-China Program. Dr. Lewis is a National Committee on US-China Relations’ Public Intellectuals Program fellow and from 2011-2012 was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.Previously, Dr. Lewis was a senior international fellow at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and a researcher in the China Energy Group at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She served as the technical director for the Asia Society’s Initiative for U.S.-China Cooperation on Energy and Climate, and has also worked at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the National Wildlife Federation and the Environmental Defense Fund. From 2003-2004 she was a visiting scholar at the Institute of Energy, Environment, and Economy at Tsinghua University in Beijing and in 2010 was a visiting fellow at the East West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Joanna Lewis holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in energy and resources from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.A. in environmental science and policy from Duke University.
