Climate Governance in China: Using the "Iron Hand"

Abstract

This chapter analyses the Chinese climate governance landscape that has emerged over the past decade, and focuses on the role of local governments. The central argument is that climate governance in China is predominantly top-down and highly bureaucratic in nature. Local initiatives to address climate change have tended to be responses to policy directions and performance targets imposed from the central government in Beijing. However, there is an interesting transnational dynamic to local climate governance in China as many local governments have embraced the financial opportunities afforded by the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Alongside environmental aid projects funded by multilateral agencies and private foundations, there is considerable climate mitigation activity at the local level because of the CDM.