Implementing a low-carbon future : climate leadership in Chinese cities / Weila Gong.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gong, Weila, author.

Series:

Studies in comparative energy and environmental politics.

Oxford scholarship online.

Studies in comparative energy and environmental politics

Oxford scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Climate change mitigation--Government policy--China.

Climate change mitigation.

Political leadership--China.

Political leadership.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (193 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2025]

Summary:

In an era of intensified geopolitics and of national-level political gridlock, subnational governments can potentially play an essential role in combating global climate change. Can subnational governments introduce and sustain climate policy actions through changes in political leadership? How can we understand why some local areas have, and continue to, deliver on their climate goals while other areas may have set goals but have struggled to deliver them? Despite being the world's largest carbon emitter, China has pledged to attain peak carbon before 2030 and carbon neutrality before 2060. Since the early 2010s, Beijing has selected more than one hundred local low-carbon pilots at municipal and provincial levels to engage in policy experimentation. In this book, Weila Gong examines four cases of such policy experimentation and finds that local implementation outcomes were mixed.

Contents:

Cover

Title page

Copyright page

Dedication page

Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

Acknowledgments

1 Introduction

Explaining Subnational Engagement in Low-Carbon Policy Experimentation

A Leadership Approach to Examining Uneven Subnational Climate Engagement

What Is Bridging Leadership?

The Mechanism of Bridging Leadership

Key Arguments of the Book

Study Design and Data Collection

Plan of the Book

2 Subnational Engagement in China's Low-Carbon Energy Transitions

Economic Transformation and Environmental Challenges Facing China

Characterizing Subnational Climate Policy Implementation in China

Evolving Subnational Engagement in China's Low-Carbon Energy Transitions

Initiating renewable projects designed to alleviate local poverty

Stunted development in subnational climate engagement

Climate institutional reform and aftermath

Conclusion

3 A Leadership Approach to Low-Carbon Policy Implementation

Limitations of Existing Explanations

The Leadership Approach

The Structure of Bridging Leadership

Political leaders

Bridge leaders

Resource Mobilization

Institutional structures

Implementing resources

Measuring Local Engagement in Policy Experimentation

4 Substantive Engagement: Shenzhen

Transforming Local Economic Growth through Low-Carbon Development

The Leadership Approach to Low-Carbon Policy Experimentation

Shenzhen emissions trading system

The Shenzhen International Low-Carbon City Program

A low-carbon solution to a development challenge

Pushing a local project to the global level

5 Performative Engagement: Nanchang

Unlikely Forerunners in Low-Carbon Policy Experiments

The Leadership Path toward Low-Carbon Policy Experimentation

Chief Economist Liu as the bridge leader.

Resource Mobilization

Metro construction

Greening local government performance evaluation criteria

Building energy efficiency and green building regulations

Local legislation on low-carbon development

6 Symbolic Engagement: Zhenjiang

Local Challenges Related to Decarbonization

Low-Carbon City Evaluation System: Pushing regulatory measures to the provincial level

Building energy efficiency and green building standards

Creating a low-carbon development division

7 Sporadic Engagement: Xiamen

A Cautious Low-Carbon Practitioner

The Leadership Path Toward Low-Carbon Policy Experimentation

Bridging Leadership

The "Beautiful Xiamen" strategy: Decreased political attention to decarbonization

A new form of alliance?

8 Rethinking Subnational Climate Leadership in China and Beyond

Subnational Climate Leadership: Taking Bureaucrats Seriously

How bridge leaders emerge and thrive

The Future of China's Subnational Climate Leadership

Strengthening Subnational Climate Policy Implementation in China

Sustaining Subnational Climate Engagement Beyond China

Subnational policy entrepreneurship in climate actions

Subnational climate leadership in an era of increasing geopolitical tension

APPENDIX Distribution of Interviews

List of Cited Interviews and Personal Conversations

Notes

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource and publisher information; title from PDF title page (viewed on August 27, 2025).

ISBN:

0-19-775743-X

0-19-775744-8

0-19-775745-6

9780197757437

OCLC:

1545351983