China and Climate Change Politics

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

With its increasing energy consumption, China has been the largest emitter of carbon dioxide since the mid-2000s, accounting for over a quarter of the global emissions. The trajectory of global warming before climate stabilization in large hinges on the success of China's efforts in addressing climate change in the next few decades. Scholars have been closely studying climate politics, especially in developed countries; many theoretical models have been proposed and tested, which greatly advanced our understanding of climate change politics. Yet most of the theoretical frameworks are limited to the setting of democratic countries, making them less applicable in the Chinese context. For instance, the distributive politics model views climate politics as a conflict between various interest groups because reducing emissions creates winners and losers, therefore different preferences for climate mitigation and adaptation policies. Policy outputs and outcomes then would be determined by the relative power of interest groups (Colgan, Green, and Hale 2021; Mildenberger 2020). Interest groups do exist in China. Yet typical political actions of interest groups such as lobby, donations, and political coalition formation either do not exist or are not observable in China because of the authoritarian state nature of Chinese politics. The study of China's climate politics is in great need of theoretical innovations and empirical testing of new frameworks.

This panel brings four excellent papers together with a collective goal to advance our understanding of China's climate politics with both theoretical and empirical innovations. One important highlight of the panel is the fact that each paper focuses on a particular political actor involved. Examining the policy preferences and priorities of Chinese coal policies, Gong and Lewis analyze China’s coal transition policies and bureaucratic struggles. They find that policy instruments supporting coal maintenance are much stronger than those promoting coal reduction, likely reflecting a government priority that promotes energy security over climate mitigation. Moving away from government policy preferences and priorities, Cao and Zhu examine corporate environmental and carbon disclosure performance of Chinese listed companies, with a particular focus on the effect of firm ownership. To measure whether a firm disclosed its environmental (air and water pollution) and climate (carbon emissions) performances, they collect firm annual reports and corporate sustainability reports for ALL listed companies from the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges and company websites, 2008-2022.

The next two papers shift the attention away from domestic to international actors. Lu and Lewis assess the impact of international policy actors on China's climate policymaking. Using a network analysis based on original network data from the climate policy community in Beijing between 2014 and 2019, they demonstrate how international climate entrepreneurs utilize their structural positions in the policy network to facilitate climate policy in China by affecting state agencies’ knowledge and policy preferences, which in turn determine the government’s willingness to provide climate public goods. May and Li compare advocacy strategies of international NGOs aiming to promote a greener China. They examine international NGOs’ efforts to promote environmental governance within the context of China’s outbound activities. Using a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) of 42 cases of INGOs’ efforts to greening global China, they highlight how global civil society actors navigate the complex political and organizational environment to shape responsible environmental behavior of an increasingly globalized China.

In sum, each paper in this paper addresses factors influencing China's engagement in addressing global climate change. Collectively, they deepen our understanding of the dynamics between government agencies, firms, and international actors in shaping China's climate politics and policies, both domestically and internationally.

Sub Unit

• Division 39: Science, Technology, and Environmental Politics

Chair

• Genia Kostka Freie Universität Berlin

Discussant

• Iza Ding Northwestern University

Individual Presentations

• Understanding the Politics of China’s Coal Transition - Weila Gong, UC Berkeley; Joanna Lewis, Georgetown University

• Firm Ownership and Carbon Disclosure in China - Xun Cao, Penn State University; Yifei Zhu, Penn State Univ

• NGO Advocacy Strategies and the Greening of Global China - May Farid, University of San Diego; Hui Li, University of Hong Kong

• Networking for the Climate: Foreign Actors in Beijing - Jiaqi Lu, Boston University; Joanna Lewis, Georgetown University