The water-energy nexus: comparing how Los Angeles and Beijing integrate policies across sectors

The document examines the water-energy nexus (WEN) in Los Angeles and Beijing, finding that Los Angeles employs more explicit integration mechanisms—largely driven by state-level climate legislation—while Beijing relies on implicit mechanisms and sector-specific targets. It argues that common evaluation criteria, such as greenhouse gas emissions, and explicit incentives are essential for improving policy coherence and avoiding cross-sectoral conflicts.

• Integrating policies across sectors allows policy-makers to identify trade-offs and synergies, preventing policies in one sector from negatively impacting another.
• Cross-sector goals, specifically the mitigation of climate change, act as significant drivers for the integration of water and energy policies.
• The use of common evaluation criteria across different sectors, such as greenhouse gas emissions, is fundamental to enhancing policy coherence.
• In Los Angeles, policy integration is primarily driven by California's state-level climate initiatives, specifically the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32), which provides common objectives and language for both sectors.
• Los Angeles utilizes a formal inter-agency organization, the Water-Energy Team of the Climate Action Team (WET-CAT), to facilitate communication and coordinate the climate and energy impacts of the water system.
• Beijing's approach to the water-energy nexus is characterized by implicit mechanisms and sector-specific targets, with no dedicated agency to coordinate policy-making between the two sectors.
• In Beijing, resource efficiency is a common target for both water and energy sectors, but it is pursued within individual sectors rather than across them.
• A significant hindrance in Beijing is that the national government emphasizes water resource constraints for energy development more than energy constraints for water.

APA

Huber-Lee, A., & Handly, L. (2019). The water-energy nexus: comparing how Los Angeles and Beijing integrate policies across sectors. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/the-water-energy-nexus-comparing-how-la-and-beijing-integrate-policies-across-sectors.pdf

Chicago

Huber-Lee, Annette, and Laura Handly. The water-energy nexus: comparing how Los Angeles and Beijing integrate policies across sectors. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2019. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/the-water-energy-nexus-comparing-how-la-and-beijing-integrate-policies-across-sectors.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Huber-Lee |first1=Annette |last2=Handly |first2=Laura |title=The water-energy nexus: comparing how Los Angeles and Beijing integrate policies across sectors |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=December 2019 |url=https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/the-water-energy-nexus-comparing-how-la-and-beijing-integrate-policies-across-sectors.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{huberlee2019waterenergy, author = {Huber-Lee, Annette and Handly, Laura}, title = {{The water-energy nexus: comparing how Los Angeles and Beijing integrate policies across sectors}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2019}, month = dec, url = {https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/the-water-energy-nexus-comparing-how-la-and-beijing-integrate-policies-across-sectors.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }