Can China save the world (original) (raw)
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A balancing act : China’s role in climate change
2009
Climate change has reached the apex of the global agenda at a time when China faces significant development and energy security challenges. The political leadership and leading intellectuals are debating the direction of a new development pathway that provides both growth to meet development objectives, and dramatically reduces energy intensity and pollution. While the official position has not changed significantly, there are four key aspects that illustrate how climate change is conceived by the Chinese leadership. This signals that China may come to play a much more important role in global mitigation of climate change than was thought only a couple of years ago.
Is China the New Global Leader in the Fight Against Climate Change?
2019
Many commentators say that China’s approach to climate change has shifted over the last decade. Both within and outside ‘China watcher’ circles, China is no longer simply seen as a threat to ecology and climate. Now, a significant tranche of media reports and research papers suggest China is the new global leader in the fight against climate change, some going as far as suggesting it might ‘save the world’. This paper has analysed the concept of China’s leadership in the fight against climate change, with the aim of assessing whether China is, indeed, the new global leader. In doing so, this paper aimed to better inform all climate change stakeholders on the position they might take vis-a-vis China in future. This study was driven by the research question: is China the new global leader in the fight against climate change? This qualitative study first set out a definition of leadership within multilateral environmental governance, before drawing together key literature and findings from studies made over the last 10 years. It analysed this evidence against theoretical concepts of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ power, and leadership, as illustrated by Joseph Nye. It tested the null hypothesis ‘China is purely a follower in the global fight against climate change, and shows no evidence of leadership of any form’ and found it to be falsifiable to a certain extent. There is significant evidence that China has changed the global ‘green economy’ - making ambitious emission reductions logistically feasible and affordably priced. Evidence of China achieving pre-eminent status in relevant multilateral organisations, however, is mixed at best. Furthermore, analysis of China’s massive Belt and Road Initiative suggests China may be following the development path of older developed economies before it; merely ‘exporting’ the highest emitting, highest polluting sections of its economy to other countries in the developing world.
China is a Key to Mitigate Global Climate Change
The Journal of international studies, 2015
This paper attempts to discuss China’s response on the global climate change. China, well known as the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, the largest energy consumer and the second largest economy in the world, contributes for a third of the planet’s greenhouse gas output and has one of the world’s most polluted cities that surpassed United States and India. China’s economy growth has changed its perception on how they should cultivate their land, water, and natural resources. This economic expansion which is driven by fossil fuels, has led to dramatic increases in emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs). The world concerns on environmental problems in China because it influences the world whether pattern, it effects human life and it influences global community market. Keywords : Greenhouse Gases, Environmental Problems, Economy Growth
Open Letter to President Xi Jinping on the Climate Crisis (2022)
Asian Studies, 2023
Although climate models predict that global heating will prove more devastating for China than for many other countries, and economic models have shown that a transition to a low-carbon economy would strengthen China in the long run, the Chinese leadership has failed to reduce fossil fuel consumption enough to avoid extremes of weather that are devastating the country. Not long after becoming president, Xi Jinping announced a project to ground “socialism with Chinese characteristics” in selected ideas from ancient Chinese philosophy and culture, promoting it through quotations in his speeches from the Chinese classics, and especially Confucian and Daoist thought. These ideas turn out to be perfectly suited for the ‘reframing’ of worldviews that is required to think more productively about the climate crisis and political measures for dealing with it effectively. However, the Chinese leadership has failed to live up to its inspiring words, and has instead reverted to policies that are more in line with Chinese Legalism and Stalinism than with the Confucian, Daoist, and Marxist ideas that Xi Jinping has advocated. This has dealt a severe blow to China’s standing in the world and a huge loss of ‘soft power’ that previous regimes had accumulated. With the United States a shambles, the way is open for China to follow through on its promotion of traditional Chinese philosophy and take the lead, for the sake of the long-term well-being of its own people, in tackling the climate crisis—and thereby gain the greatest soft power triumph in history.
From Paris to Beijing: China, Next Champion on Climate Change
Despite ups and downs in climate diplomacy, China has been consistent in reforming energy related sectors and implementing climate-related policies at home in the past two decades. This explains why China shows no hesitation in moving along with the Paris Agreement regardless of US participation.
China is central to global climate action, and the country is working towards innovative solutions that can mitigate the worst impacts of climate change. Simultaneously, China is pursuing low-carbon innovation, the revitalization of rural areas and the promotion of women’s development. The adverse impacts of climate change disproportionately affect disadvantaged social groups. Yet climate change interventions that address gender and other social inequalities can produce more effective and sustainable outcomes. China’s current approach to climate change and socio-economic policy is relatively siloed, top-down and technocratic, which typically precludes the consideration of these cross-cutting approaches. Key synergies exist between work on climate change mitigation and adaptation, rural revitalization and women’s development in China. Collaborative work in these areas can help to make the country’s responses to the climate crisis more effective and sustainable – and interest is growi...
China’s Capacities for Mitigating Climate Change
World Development, 2008
Economic growth and structural change have turned China into the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. The country has no international commitments to reduce its emissions, but it has developed domestic policies and climate-relevant capacities which do have mitigative effects. Economic and political reforms have supported capacity development. However, so far China's climate-relevant actions have not been influenced by climate considerations. Potential emission reductions are mainly a by-product of measures embedded in energy and transport policies aimed at cutting energy costs and increasing energy security.
China's Environmental Crisis: Why Should We Care?
2008
In this essay I address the main problems regarding Chinese environmental pollution and the failure, at least up until now, to enact a series of regulations able to solve or at least partially “revert” the current situation. Why, eventhough Chinese environmental laws have standards as high as those of their American counterparts, do they fail to curb these problems? My contention is that laws are present but not enforced; which is expecially true at the local level where economic growth is what matters the most. Aside from these problems, I argue that the rest of the world can not simply ignore China’s ecological disaster because, ultimately, the whole planet is affected by many of the devastating catastrophes originating in China making a situation that was previously thought of as “confined” within its borders, a global, “contagious” problem. 1 This study is a revised version of a paper entitled “China’s Environmental Crisis: Implications and Risks for a Globalized World”, present...