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Implementing a Low-Carbon Future:
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Contents |
AbstractAs the world’s largest carbon emitter, China has pledged to attain peak carbon emissions before 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060. Beijing has selected numerous local areas and regions to serve as “pilots” to identify enforceable climate policy solutions. These low-carbon pilot cities have yielded mixed results. Implementing a Low-Carbon Future: Climate Leadership in Chinese Cities examines the uneven implementation of these policy experiments in China’s centralized political system. Building on comparative case studies of four cities (Shenzhen, Nanchang, Xiamen, and Zhenjiang), process tracing, and over one hundred expert interviews across a variety of policy issues—such as low-carbon city programs, green building, emissions trading systems, and low-carbon legislation—this book argues that rather than relying on central directives, local entrepreneurial bureaucrats in China play an essential role in introducing and sustaining low-carbon policy actions, notably through the turnover of political appointees. The book challenges the notion that those appointed to top local political leadership posts (such as mayors) are primarily responsible for subnational climate leadership. It instead highlights the critical role of mid-level bureaucrats who act as implementation bridges to mobilize the political support and alliances needed to translate climate ambitions into action on the ground. They also work to facilitate the process of low-carbon policy institutionalization by crafting new climate institutions and pairing them with a group of trained personnel who are crucial to enhancing local responses to climate change in the long run. In an era of intensified geopolitics combined with national-level political gridlock, whether (and how) subnational governments can translate their climate ambitions into sustained policy actions will be essential to successfully combating global climate change. This book provides a roadmap for subnational governments moving from low-carbon policy experimentation to durable policy implementation. 1. IntroductionChina has introduced a series of policy experiments to engage subnational governments in exploring ways to decouple economic growth from increased fossil fuel use. This chapter introduces the book’s theoretical framework--Bridging Leadership—which examines the variation in city-level engagement in these low-carbon policy experiments. The chapter also introduces the “low-carbon pilot city” program and discusses the mobilization strategies that mid-level entrepreneurial bureaucrats (known as bridge leaders) employ to initiate and sustain low-carbon policy experiments, and how they have led to varying levels of policy institutionalization (standards, regulations, and legislation). In addition, it proposes a typology to explain different types of policy engagement. The chapter concludes by briefly summarizing each chapter. 2. Subnational Engagement in China’s Low-Carbon Energy TransitionsThis chapter provides a brief historical overview of subnational engagement in China’s low-carbon energy transitions over the past five decades, from the introduction of energy conservation and renewable energy policy programs in the 1970s to the 2018 climate institutional reform. Subnational governments, despite their constrained political decision-making authority and financial resources, have been crucial testing grounds for new policy ideas and solutions in China. This chapter characterizes subnational climate policy implementation in China and explains how subnational policy experiments have historically informed national approaches to addressing climate change. Many observers have described China’s low-carbon energy transition as a top-down initiative, claiming that factors such as enhanced capacity or local competition for economic opportunities are key to explaining the country’s successes in decarbonization. By contrast, this chapter offers a new perspective that focuses on the role of subnational government leadership in shaping China’s national approach to low-carbon energy transitions. 3. A Leadership Approach to Low-Carbon Policy Implementation This chapter introduces the book’s theoretical framework. It starts by reviewing existing theories of policy implementation under the framework of central–local relations that emerged from the debates over principal–agent dilemmas and fragmented bureaucratic structures that have been applied to explain environmental and climate policy implementation in a centralized political system like China’s. A new theoretical framework to explain variation in subnational policy implementation, Bridging Leadership, is then introduced, and the book’s key concepts are defined, including bridge leaders, resource mobilization, and policy institutionalization. This framework focuses on the role of local mid-level bureaucrats as bureaucratic entrepreneurs and their resource mobilization capacity. It outlines the sources of political support as well as the implementation alliances that are crucial for the outcomes of subnational climate policy experiments. 4. Substantive Engagement: ShenzhenThis chapter presents Shenzhen: a case of substantive engagement in low-carbon policy experimentation. While it was a low-carbon pilot city, Shenzhen established a degree of low-carbon institutionalization consisting of legislation, regulations, and standards together with a group of trained personnel for enforcement. This chapter outlines the city’s history of climate and environmental initiatives and traces its engagement in the emissions trading pilot program and the Shenzhen International Low-Carbon City Program. It then argues that its bridge leader’s ability to secure political support and mobilize implementation alliances with key local actors, such as the local people’s congress and business sectors, helped the city build new low-carbon institutions in policy implementation. 5. Performative Engagement: NanchangThis chapter presents Nanchang: a case of performative engagement in low-carbon city policy experimentation. Although it is an economically lagging city, Nanchang was one of the first Chinese cities to pass promotional legislation on low-carbon development through its local people’s congress in 2016. The chapter argues that Nanchang’s low-carbon policy experimentation has been driven by a bridge leader motivated to impress higher levels of government in order to access financial resources. However, the city struggled to maintain its low-carbon policy initiatives, particularly after its chief economist left office. This chapter uses the case to discuss the bridge leader’s critical role in mobilizing the financial resources and implementation alliances needed for local policy initiatives. But enforceable implementation outcomes have largely been undermined due to the lack of trained personnel to carry out policy enforcement. 6. Symbolic Engagement: ZhenjiangThis chapter presents a case study of low-carbon policy experimentation in the city of Zhenjiang. Its commitment to addressing climate change may seem unexpected due to its carbon-intensive energy structure and because its coal-powered plants supply electricity to eastern China. This chapter explores how Zhenjiang has displayed symbolic engagement in decarbonization. It highlights the city’s efforts to create low-carbon regulatory standards as well as a specialized bureaucratic agency promoting low-carbon policy actions while facing unresolved challenges in balancing economic development and reducing its carbon emissions. For example, while the city’s bureaucratic entrepreneurs have secured the necessary political support to push local low-carbon evaluation standards to the provincial level, insufficient industrial participation has jeopardized local policy implementation. 7. Sporadic Engagement: Xiamen This chapter presents Xiamen as a case of sporadic engagement in its low-carbon city policy experimentation. Although the city is a leader in environmental protection, it has taken a cautious approach in translating its low-carbon goals into actions; it achieved limited low-carbon policy institutionalization during the implementation process. The chapter explains that this outcome is a result of the lack of bridging leadership to mobilize the political support and resources needed to sustain policy engagement, particularly after the administrative authority shifted from the Xiamen Construction Bureau to the Xiamen Development and Reform Commission. 8. Rethinking Subnational Climate Leadership in China and Beyond This chapter concludes by reflecting on what we can learn from the cases of uneven subnational climate engagement presented in this book, and how these insights relate to broader questions about the role of subnational climate leadership in China and beyond. It argues that using the Bridging Leadership framework allows us to elucidate the conditions under which sustained climate policy engagement is likely to occur. The chapter discusses the factors that shape the emergence and function of bridge leaders, explores the future of subnational climate leadership in China, and proposes measures that the national government can take to further encourage subnational engagement in addressing climate change. Finally, it discusses connections to policy entrepreneurship in subnational climate leadership beyond China and the international implications of the Bridging Leadership framework, particularly in an era of intensifying geopolitical tensions between major powers such as the United States and China. |
Endorsements |
“China is the world’s largest emitter of warming gases and is now doing a lot to learn how to cut its pollution. In this thoughtful book, Weila Gong shows that much of innovation is coming from cities led by entrepreneurial bureaucrats who see the future in clean industry. She shows why some cities are doing a lot more than others and why this leadership is politically sustainable. It’s a book that adds not just hope but also deeper understanding of how subnational policy actually works.”
- David G. Victor, University of California-San Diego “Weila Gong offers a deep dive into how local government leadership has shaped low-carbon policy experiments in China. With four case studies of regions in southeast China, Gong shows how local leadership’s implementation capacity is dependent on the ability to mobilize trained personnel and establish action alliances. This book is an important addition to the literature on central–local relations, local leadership, and climate policy making.”
- Miranda A. Schreurs, Technical University of Munich "This fascinating book examines how mid-level bureaucratic entrepreneurs institutionalize China’s low-carbon policy experimentation by mobilizing the political authority and implementation resources needed to translate policy ideas into actions. Gong’s focus on subnational climate leadership introduces a new actor into the policy innovation literature to adopt sustainable low-carbon solutions."
- Jessica C. Teets, Middlebury College “Weila Gong’s excellent book focuses our attention on the role of bridge leaders, essential mid-level bureaucrats who can make or break policy experimentation at the local level in China. Her fine-grained look at how local agency and capacity shape and sustain sub-national low-carbon initiatives gives us a conceptual framework for evaluating the role of diverse localities in China’s quest for carbon neutrality.”
- Alex L. Wang, UCLA School of Law |