Research

My research examines how states and communities respond to emerging climate and environmental challenges across local to global levels. I explain how political and institutional arrangements shape the driving forces behind global climate leadership and impact the state's capacity to achieve a rapid and equitable low-carbon energy transition. My work has been published by Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, China Quarterly, Environmental Politics, Energy Research and Social Science, and PLOS Climate, and has been featured in Bloomberg News, the Wilson Center’s New Security Beat blog, the Harvard Climate Blog, and The Harvard Crimson. 

Building on extensive expert interviews, comparative case studies, and process tracing, my first book, Implementing a Low-Carbon Future: Climate Leadership in Chinese Cities, examines the uneven implementation of low-carbon policies in China's centralized political system. It presents an original theoretical framework of bridging leadership, emphasizing the central role of entrepreneurial bureaucrats in initiating and sustaining low-carbon policy actions. It challenges the conventional wisdom by elucidating the conditions that lead to the institutionalization of low-carbon policy through policy experimentation. 

Politics and Policy of Low-Carbon Energy Transitions

How (and why) does a state respond to emerging climate and environmental challenges? What conditions its capacity to promote and implement low-carbon energy transitions? How do bureaucracy, political leadership, and policy entrepreneurship shape a state’s capacity to decarbonize?

I examine the case of China, the world’s largest carbon emitter and a major global power. I explore the political and institutional factors that advance or inhibit a state’s capacity to achieve low-carbon energy transitions from the local to the global levels. My work investigates issues including low-carbon cities, coal transition, equitable energy transitions (Just Transitions), and international energy investment in developing countries (Belt and Road Initiative).

I argue that scholarly research needs to move beyond a focus on distributive politics, which concentrates on the winners and losers in the transition, to view such transitions as a learning process that seeks solutions to policy questions. States need to empower subnational governments and other non-state actors, and provide the conditions for thriving policy entrepreneurship inside and outside the government.

Enabling an Equitable Low-Carbon Energy Transition

Achieving carbon neutrality goals will affect local areas and regions that rely on fossil fuel energy production the most. Equitable transitions involve economic diversification, effective policy implementation, and actions to promote social cohesion. Government initiatives that coherently address the impacts of economic, political, and social factors in policymaking can lead to a planned transition that balances efficiency and justice.

I also research how the distribution of resources (political, financial, and human) affects state capacity to facilitate equitable low-carbon energy transitions, especially in leading carbon emitters such as China, the United States, and JETP  (Just Energy Transition Partnership) countries (Indonesia, South Africa, and Vietnam). I co-led an interdisciplinary project with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory on the social and economic impacts of global energy transitions, with a focus on communities in the 11 leading coal-producing countries. 

I conduct extensive field research and use expert interviews with policymakers and stakeholders, analysis of original policy documents and databases, and comparative case studies to investigate how bureaucracy, intergovernmental relations, and the distribution of resources between labor (communities and workers) and capital (enterprises)  shapes states' capacity to achieve equitable transitions. 

All (14)

Book (1)

Articles (8)

Works in Progress (5)

Climate Politics and Policy (12)

Energy Transition (7)

Cities and Communities (9)

International (5)

China (10)

Industrial Policy (5)

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▶ Gong, Weila. 2025. Implementing a Low-Carbon Future: Climate Leadership in Chinese Cities. Oxford University Press. New

• Abstract: As 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.
• Keywords: climate change, low-carbon city, policy experiment, policy entrepreneurship, policy implementation, bureaucrat, central–local relations, comparative politics, political leadership, China.

▶ Panda, Anurag, Esther Shears, Felix Schenuit, Weila Gong, and Florian Egli. 2025. "Framework to Inform the Public Debate on Green Industrial Policy." PLOS Climate. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000614.

• Abstract: Green Industrial Policies (GIPs) worldwide aim to strategically direct economic activity to achieve the technological change necessary for decarbonization. To make GIPs politically feasible, the policy goals extend beyond decarbonization and encompass broader societal and economic objectives. Under the Biden Administration, the United States (U.S.) had implemented the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), one of the most comprehensive GIP packages worldwide. The IRA aims to 1) decarbonize the energy system by accelerating clean energy technology deployment, 2) strengthen economic competitiveness by reshoring manufacturing and supporting industry development in emerging technologies, 3) advance economic, social, and environmental justice by creating jobs and reducing energy bills and pollution in disadvantaged communities, and 4) ensure security of energy technology supply by building resilient and more domestic supply chains. Despite this attempt to integrate broader societal objectives into climate action, the IRA is being repealed. In this piece, we urge the academic and policymaking community to adopt a concise framework that spans across multiple policy goals when evaluating GIPs to inform the ongoing public debate.
• Keywords: green industrial policy, climate policy, economic policy, framework, public debate, sustainability.

▶ Gong, Weila, and Joanna Lewis. 2024. "The Politics of China's Just Transition and the Shift Away from Coal." Energy Research & Social Science. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2024.103643.

• Abstract: The global coal transition is already underway: countries are shifting to lower-carbon energy sources. However, this shift may cause myriad economic and social challenges in coal-dependent regions; early plant retirements will create stranded assets, and economic transformation will generate unemployment and potential social instability. China's coal sector is the largest source of carbon emissions in the world. Despite the country's central role in the global coal transition, its just transition policies and strategies are not well understood. We compile a database of relevant Chinese policies and interview key stakeholders to comprehensively review the country's just transition policy priorities and instruments and compare them to a framework of just transition best practices based on international experience. We find that the Chinese government at various levels has introduced a series of policy strategies and tools to address the economic and social challenges caused by the coal transition, especially those related to workforce development, environmental reclamation, and economic transformation. The majority of resources, however, have been distributed to coal-related businesses rather than coal workers and communities. This prioritization of resources toward capital over labor may constrain the ability of coal workers and communities to undertake a just transition away from coal.
• Keywords: just transition, coal phase-out, China, energy transition, social justice, labor, environmental policy.

▶ Gong, Weila, and Joanna Lewis. 2023. "The Role of International Engagement in Greening China's Belt and Road Initiative." Environmental Politics. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2023.2223074.

• Abstract: As China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has emerged as the largest public financier for energy infrastructure projects worldwide, concerns about the environmental and climate impacts of such projects have led to mounting international pressure on the Chinese government to 'green' its investment practices. This paper examines the understudied role of international engagement, and of specific international actors, in greening China's BRI. We propose two discrete models of engagement which serve as a means of understanding the role that international actors have played in greening China's BRI: (1) through direct engagement that influences individual project outcomes; and (2) through indirect engagement that shapes China's broader policies and investment practices. We also identify factors that have constrained the role of international influence, including the absence of an influential Chinese international development agency. Finally, we propose opportunities for international engagement with China regarding its overseas investment practices.
• Keywords: Belt and Road Initiative, Green BRI, China, International environmental politics, Global environmental governance.

▶ Gong, Weila. 2022. "Temporary Leaders and Stable Institutions: How Local Bureaucratic Entrepreneurs Institutionalize China's Low-Carbon Policy Experiments." The China Quarterly 252: 1206-1232. Open Access

• Abstract: Traditional analysis of China's policy experimentation has focused on the role of central–local relations and rotating leaders in shaping the local agenda-setting process. Less is known about the role of less mobile mid-level local bureaucrats who serve as bridges in the implementation process. This paper examines why some cities have performed better than others at implementing and maintaining low-carbon policy experiments. Drawing on a comparison of four case cities and over 100 expert interviews, I argue that the availability of bureaucratic entrepreneurs and their resource mobilization capacity determine the level of local engagement in climate policy experimentation. This study shows that the institutionalization of local policy experiments is not only driven by the central government or rotating top local leaders but also by bureaucratic entrepreneurs who help policy experiments survive periodic changes in the bureaucracy. The findings have important implications for the fulfilment of China's 2060 carbon neutrality pledge.
• Keywords: bureaucratic politics, policy experimentation, cadre rotation, climate policy, leadership, cities, China.

▶ Gong, Weila. 2019. "Local Leadership and China's Low-Carbon Policy Experimentation." Fudan Public Administration Review: 163-186.

• Abstract: This article introduces an analytical framework of local leadership to explain mixed low-carbon policy implementation in four pilot case cities.
• Keywords: local leadership, low-carbon policy, policy experimentation, China, urban governance.

▶ Gong, Weila. 2020. "Citizen Science and Data Governance in the People's Republic of China." In Historical Dictionary of the Green Movement, 3rd ed., edited by Miranda Schreurs and Elim Papadakis, 80-81. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

• Abstract: This book section examines the emergence and evolution of citizen science in China’s environmental governance and explores its implications for the country’s data governance.
• Keywords: citizen science, data governance, China, environmental movement, grassroots participation.

▶ Gong, Weila. 2018. "Low-Carbon Transition in Shenzhen." In Climate Change and Cities: Second Assessment Report of the Urban Climate Change Research Network, edited by Cynthia Rosenzweig, William D. Solecki, Patricia Romero-Lankao, Shagun Mehrotra, Shobhakar Dhakal, and Somayya Ali Ibrahim, 758-760. New York: Cambridge University Press.

• Abstract: This book section examines the role of local government leadership in Shenzhen and its influence on shaping the city’s approach to low-carbon initiatives.
• Keywords: Shenzhen, low-carbon transition, urban climate policy, local government, China.

▶ Gong, Weila, Hang Yin, and Tian Lan. 2013. "The Rise of Offshore Wind Power Developments and Trends in the Case of Germany." Energy Observer Magazine, October.

• Abstract: This case study examines both the policy choices and technological options that have influenced the rise of Germany's offshore wind development.
• Keywords: offshore wind, Germany, renewable energy, energy policy, wind power development.

▶ Gong, Weila, and Joanna Lewis. "The Politics and Policies Governing China's Coal Transition." Under review.

• Abstract: Please check back soon.
• Keywords: coal transition, China, energy policy, just transition, climate policy.

▶ Gong, Weila. "Chapter 3: Policy Programs and Instruments" in Forging Low-Carbon Economic Transitions: International Best Practices and Insights for China. Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and California-China Climate Institute.

• Abstract: Please check back soon.
• Keywords: low-carbon transitions, policy programs, policy instruments, China, international best practices.

▶ Gong, Weila, Jingna Kou, Fang Zhang, and Yunsheng Xie. "The Power of Policy Entrepreneurship: State Capacity in Low-Carbon Energy Transitions."

• Abstract: Please check back soon.
• Keywords: policy entrepreneurship, state capacity, low-carbon energy transitions, energy policy, governance.

▶ Freese, Lyssa, Abigail Andrews, James Rising, Constantine Spandagos, Felix Schenuit, Jackie Dowling, Dominic Bednar, Amin Mirkouei, Constance Crozier, Erick C. Johnes Jr., Qian Luo, and Weila Gong. "Bridging Research and Policy to Achieve a Clean Energy Future."

• Abstract: Please check back soon.
• Keywords: clean energy, research-policy interface, energy transition, policy translation, collaborative research.

▶ Gong, Weila. "Strengthening Subnational Climate Engagement Amid Intensified Geopolitical Tensions."

• Abstract: Please check back soon.
• Keywords: subnational climate action, China, policy experimentation, institutional innovation, climate collaboration, geopolitical tensions.

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