Environment and Energy Stream

Ningdong Energy and Chemical Industry Base, Ningxia 2025. Photo by Sarah Rogers.

Research Stream: Environment and Energy

The research stream on environment and energy at the Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies examines the rapid changes taking place in China’s energy production, longer-term changes to environmental governance and politics (particularly in relation to water and agrochemicals), and China’s growing involvement in global environmental governance. The cluster brings together geographers who study these changes on the ground in specific places. Past research has examined Chinese investment in hydropower and palm oil in Indonesia and the impacts of the mega South-to-North Water Transfer Project. Current research focuses on China’s net zero transition, water and waste governance, resettlement, agrochemicals, and China’s climate cooperation in Southeast Asia.

Stream Coordinator: Sarah Rogers

Current Projects

Kemdiktisaintek - LPDP - KONEKSI Project - Strengthening Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Standards and Practices for a Just Transition

This project is examining the ESG standards and practices of different donors and actors in Indonesia's green transition. Our three case studies of geothermal and hydropower projects are in Central Sulawesi, West Sumatra, and East Nusa Tenggara.

Team: Sarah Rogers, Trissia Wijaya, Ardhitya Eduard Yeremia, Suraya Afiff, Brooke Wilmsen, Xian Han, Sri Setiawati, La Husen Zuada, Pantoro Tri Kuswardono.

CCCS Seed Funding – China’s Climate Cooperation in Southeast Asia

This project examines the volume, source, destination countries, sectors, and key players in China’s climate finance in Southeast Asia. The team is analysing the scale and nature of China’s investments to understand what they reveal about south-south climate cooperation and shifting development geographies.

Team: Justin See, Sarah Rogers, Mengyao Li, Xiaoxuan Chen, Miles Kenney-Lazar, Xiao Han (Monash University), Brooke Wilmsen (La Trobe University), Kevin Lo (Hong Kong Baptist University), Tyler Harlan (Loyola Marymount University), Ardhitya Yeremia Lalisang (Universitas Indonesia).

Chinese Agrochemicals in Australian Farming

This project is examining the role of Chinese fertilisers and pesticides in Australia’s agrochemical supply. Data collection is being undertaken through interviews with suppliers, agronomists, and peak bodies, and industry events.

Team: Sarah Rogers, Yue Zhao, Sonia Graham (University of Wollongong), Brooke Wilmsen (La Trobe University), Zoe Wang (James Cook University)

Community Engagement and Outreach

In June 2026 CCCS Honorary Fellow, Paul D'Arcy travelled to Beijing at the invitation of The Institute of Area Studies, Peking University (PKUIAS) to participate in their “Regional and Country Studies with a Global Perspective and Cross-Regional Knowledge Interaction Project.”  He gave 4 seminars on China and the Pacific to postgraduate students and staff from PKU and elsewhere in China:

A1) Pacific Island Sustainable Development Needs and Priorities

A2) China and the Pacific Blue Economy: Past Lessons and Future Prospects

A3) Pacific Tourism Partnerships: Balancing Profitability, Sustainability and Community Development

A4) Maintaining the Pacific as a Zone of Peace: Past, Present and Future Pathways

Graduate Researchers

  • Ricky Chen
  • Mengyao Li
  • Shenquan Li
  • Dongyang Mi
  • Zac Lowell

Latest Publications

  • Wang, M., Rogers, S., Zhao, Y. (2026)  Mega water projects and their chain reactions: central-provincial dynamics in Chinese hydropolitics, International Journal of Water Resources Development, Online First.
  • Rogers, S., Browne, A., Wilmsen, B., Wang, M. (2026)  Editorial: The new hydropolitics of China, Geographical Research 64(3)
  • Rogers, S., Zhao, Y., Graham, S., Wilmsen, B., Wang, Z.J-H (2026) Pesticide supply chains from China to Australia: Examining paraquat amid the global pesticide complex, Journal of Agrarian Change, Early View
  • Liu, Z., Rogers, S (2026) Flooding and injustice in Ningbo, China, Geographical Research
  • Chen, R.Y.Z., Wang, R.Y., Wang, M (2026) China's digitalised water governance and authoritarian environmentalism, Geographical Research
  • Rogers (2025) Pesticide infrastructures: From China to Australia, Roadsides, Vol 14
  • Xu, Rogers, Veldwisch, Melsen, Han, Boelens (2025) Towards a critical understanding of digital twins: The politics of digitalizing rivers in China,Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space
  • Wilmsen, Yeremia, Rogers, Afiff (2025) Rupture and its temporalities at Indonesia’s Jatigede Dam, Water Alternatives 18(2)
  • Yeremia, Rogers, Tan, Afiff, Talib (2025) “Fence culture”: Grounding global China in Kalimantan, Eurasian Geography and Economics
  • Mi, Browne, Iossifova, Petrova (2025) Everyday geographies of uneven water infrastructures and practices in China, Geographical Research
  • Li & Liu (2025) “We know nothing except fishing”: Fishing bans under China’s ecological civilisation, Geographical Research
  • Zhao & Rogers (2024) Tracing China’s agrochemical complex, World Development, 131
  • Zhu, A., Weins, N., Lu, J., Harlan, T., Qian, J., & Barbi, F. (2024) China’s nature-based solutions in the Global South: Evidence from Asia, Africa, and Latin America, Global Environmental Change 86: 102842.
  • Liu, Zhen, Rogers, Browne (2024) Worlding Chinese environmental geographies: A systematic, bilingual literature review, Progress in Environmental Geography, 3(1)
  • Lamb, Rogers, Wang (2024) The fence ‘didn’t work’: The mundane engagements and material practices of state-led development in China’s Danjiangkou Reservoir, Territory, Politics, Governance, 12(2)
  • Harlan, T. (2023) Low-carbon frontier: Renewable energy and the new resource boom in western China, The China Quarterly 255: 591-610

Upcoming Publications

Paul D'Arcy has assisted The Institute of Area Studies, Peking University translation team with the two-volume Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean which he served as General Editor for with final queries over their full Mandarin translation for The Commercial Press and Cambridge University Press. The Mandarin translation is now in production for release in early 2027 as a university textbook.

In the Media

  • Rogers, S., Graham, S., Wang, Z.J.H (2026) Cheap, effective and dangerous: How Australian farmers came to depend on the toxic weedkiller paraquat. The Conversation