China's Energy Future Attracts the Ambitious and the Young

BEIJING, CHINA--A man clutched the mic and the chatters in the crowded bar died down.

There’s no band or stereo but a projector screen featuring a Power Point presentation. The person commanding the crowd’s attention was no rock singer with spiky hair but a middle-aged man sporting a pair of glasses and khaki. His name was Jeff Huang, Vice President of the Chicago Climate Exchange.

“We are trying to build a climate exchange in Tianjin,” a city eighty miles Southeast of Beijing, Huang said. “People talk about cap and trade as if it’s something in the future. In fact, we’ve been practicing cap and trade in Chicago with good result for six years.”

The audience was a collection of a few dozen strikingly youthful looking members. They perched on bar stools or the pool table, sipping their drinks occasionally and scribbling on their notebooks. They are members of the Beijing Energy Network, an informal group of young people interested in China’s energy and environment future.

“It started with four guys having discussions over Korean barbeques every...

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