Wu Changhua who flies and fights for climate change

When Wu Changhua started her career as an English editor at China Environment News 28 years ago, she thought that environmental protection meant sweeping the streets and planting trees. Now, she has become one of Asia's leading scholars on climate change and a senior policy advisor.

Wu Changhua, Executive Director of Professional Association for China's Environment, takes an interview from China Plus. [Photo: China Plus]

Through her journey in this field, Wu has witnessed China's role change on the international stage. She shared with China Plus some of her insights about the country's changing role in the world for our new series "Deep Dive: Talks with Chinese Internationals".

You can also find the shows on Apple Podcasts.

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Wu Changhua and Shuttle Diplomacy for Climate Change

By Manling, host of China Plus

I read as extensively as I could about Wu Changhua, one of Asia's leading scholars on climate change, ahead of our interview. She’s been crowned a preacher of the low carbon lifestyle, an educator on climate change, and a policy adviser on the sustainability economy. She’s also proved herself adept at dealing with the media. I eventually came upon a Chinese expression to describe her: To lift something heavy as if it is light (举重若轻). It’s used to describe someone who can handle complicated things with ease.

Wu is a beneficiary of the resumption of the gaokao, China’s college entrance examination, and the policy of economic reform and opening up that began soon afterwards. An English major, after graduation she was assigned to an editing job at the newspaper “China Environment News” in 1990. At that time, her knowledge of environmental protection was limited to street cleaning and food hygiene. But that first job was the opening salvo of her career, and since then she has been all guns blazing when it comes to promoting environmental protection.

Wu Changhua poses for photos with Manling, host of China Plus, after an interview on Oct. 31, 2018. [Photo: China Plus]

In 1992, she was entrusted with a role in the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, where she was exposed to some of the world’s sharpest minds in the field of environmental protection. By the end of the trip, she was as thirsty as ever for knowledge. Wu said that our generation had limited options, so we didn't hesitate to pick up any interesting opportunities that we could. Then the opportunity arose in 1993 for her to go to the United States to study, Wu jumped at the chance.

Years later, armed with a master's degree in environmental policy from the University of Maryland, plus work experience at the World Resources Institute, the European Network for Social and Economic Research, and The Climate Group, she returned to China to begin what would become decades of shuttle diplomacy on the environment. Currently, she serves as an executive director of Professional Association for China's Environment (PACE). She is also a founder of TECONET, a start-up platform that focuses on systemic change, and she is the director of the China/Asian region at the Office of Jeremy Rifkin. Despite having so much responsibility on her shoulders, Wu agreed to our request for an interview without hesitation. When we called her, it was four o'clock in the morning in Denmark. She told our very apologetic staff, "Never mind, I was already up anyway!”

Environmental protection, climate change, and the commitment to live a low-carbon lifestyle - these are heavy topics to discuss. The world has been doing a lot of talking, but is far from taking enough action to address the scale of the problems. Despite this, Wu Changhua seems energetic and optimistic: she’s seen knowledge about environmental protection bubble up like volcanic lava in recent years among the Chinese people, from kids to politicians and businesspeople. But what Wu wants to see now is an end to sloganeering and clichés and a move to focus on the fourth industrial revolution and the growth of an environmentally sustainable economy.