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This book compares how the social consequences of climate change are similarly unevenly distributed within China and the United States, despite different political systems.Focusing on the cases of Atlanta, USA, and Jinhua, China, Julia Teebken explores a set of path-dependent factors (lock-ins), which hamper the pursuit of climate adaptation by local governments to adequately address the root causes of vulnerability. Lock-ins help to explain why adaptation efforts in both locations are incremental and commonly focus on greening the environment. In both these political systems, vulnerability appears as a core component along with the reconstitution of a class-based society. This manifests in the way knowledge and political institutions operate. For this reason, Teebken challenges the argument that China's environmental authoritarian structures are better equipped in dealing with matters related to climate change. She also interrogates the proposition that certain aspects of the liberal democratic tradition of the United States are better suited in dealing with social justice issues in the context of adaptation. Overall, the book's findings contradict the widespread assumption that developed countries necessarily have higher adaptive capacity than developing or emerging economies.This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate justice and vulnerability, climate adaptation and environmental policy and governance.

This report traces the journey and partnership of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) over the past decade in four areas: environmental protection and ecological conservation, rural economy, green livable cities, and climate change mitigation and adaptation. It highlights how the green development partnership between the PRC and ADB has evolved over the years. Best practices, innovations, and lessons learned offer insights for ADB, its developing member countries, and other development partners. The report also presents forward-looking directions for further collaboration by the PRC and ADB in pursuit of a more sustainable future.

Climate change is a huge challenge to humanity in the 21th century. In view of China's recent pledge to the international community to peak carbon emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, this book examines climate mitigation and adaptation efforts in China through the prism of the steel sector, and it does so from three interrelated perspectives, i.e., policy, technology, and market. The book argues that in developing the country's strategy towards green growth, over the years there has been a positive and interactive relationship between China's international commitments and domestic agenda setting in mitigation and adaptation to the impact of climate change. To illustrate China's efforts, two special areas, i.e., carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) and emissions-trading system (ETS), have received focused examination. Along the spectrum of low-carbon, zero-carbon, and negative-carbon strategies, this study ends with a simulation model which outlines different policy scenarios, challenges, and uncertainties, as China moves further on, trying to achieve carbon neutrality in 2060. The book will be of interest to scholars, policy-makers, and business executives who want to understand China's growing role in the world.

As American leadership over climate change declines, China has begun to identify itself as a great power by formulating ambitious climate policies.Based on the premise that great powers have unique responsibilities, this book explores how China's rise to great power status transforms notions of great power responsibility in general and international climate politics in particular. The author looks empirically at the Chinese party-state's conceptions of state responsibility, discusses the influence of those notions on China's role in international climate politics, and considers both how China will act out its climate responsibility in the future and the broader implications of these actions. Alongside the argument that the international norm of climate responsibility is an emerging attribute of great power responsibility, Kopra develops a normative framework of great power responsibility to shed new light on the transformations China's rise will yield and the kind of great power China will prove to be.The book will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, China studies, foreign policy studies, international organizations, international ethics and environmental politics.

China is the largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world and also suffers from devastating climate catastrophes. Increasingly, policymakers in China have come to realize that government alone cannot adequately prevent or defray climate-related disaster risks. This book contends that a better way to manage catastrophe risk in China is through private insurance rather than directly through the Chinese government. In addition, private insurance could function as a substitute for, or complement to, government regulation of catastrophe risks by causing policyholders to take greater precautions to reduce climate change risks. This book's unique contribution lies in explaining how private sector insurance could be harnessed to better protect China from climate change risks, addressing the shortcomings in China's private sector when it comes to the incentive and capacity to provide catastrophe insurance. Following the dual principles of insurers acting as private risk regulators and the government acting as a last resort, this book proposes a multi-layered public-private catastrophe insurance partnership in China. It uses a thorough combination of law and economics methodology to analyze these issues. Researchers, academics, and journalists writing on climate change in China will have a strong interest in this book, as will practitioners and policy-making bodies, Chinese government officials and agencies in insurance, finance and environmental regulation, private lawyers, private insurers, and global reinsurers.

China has been subject to floods, droughts and heat waves for millennia; these hazards are not new. What is new is how rapidly climate risks are changing for different groups of people and sectors. This is due to the unprecedented rates of socio-economic development, migration, land-use change, pollution and urbanisation, all occurring alongside increasingly more intense and frequent weather hazards and shifting seasons. China's leadership is facing a significant challenge – from conducting and integrating biophysical and social vulnerability and risk assessments and connecting the information from these to policy priorities and time frames, to developing and implementing policies and actions at a variety of scales. It is within this challenging context that China's policy makers, businesses and citizens must manage climate risk and build resilience. This book provides a detailed study of how China has been working to understand and respond to climatic risk, such as droughts and desertification in the grasslands of Inner Mongolia to deadly typhoons in the mega-cities of the Pearl River Delta. Using research and data from a wide range of Chinese sources and the Adapting to Climate Change in China (ACCC) project, a research-to-policy project, this book provides a fascinating glimpse into how China is developing policies and approaches to manage the risks and opportunities presented by climate change. This book will be of interest to those studying global and Chinese climate change policy, regional food, water and climate risk, and to policy advisors.

This book looks into the increasing conflict between the demand of economic growth and the already fragile ecological system condition in China. The prolonged urbanization process has escalated the erosion of natural environments and is increasing energy consumption. China's role as a “world plant” is also demanding more and more resource supply as well as energy consumption. This book argues that to correctly respond to these emerging issues, apart from upgrading industry and improves environmental protection techniques, China needs to establish an “ecological civilization” that provides an ideological basis for the construction of a green low-carbon model of economic growth.

In the last thirty years, China has experienced rapid economic development and urbanisation which has resulted in high levels of environmental degradation and has put considerable pressure on the country's infrastructure and natural resources. As China commits to considerably lower the carbon intensity of its economy, this volume analyses and explains the governance of climate change mitigation responses in major Chinese cities. The book focuses specifically on two highly carbon intensive sectors, buildings and transport, in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong to explore how collaborative municipal networks function in practice in Chinese cities. The authors find that effective coordination relies on the political will of local administrative elites, the political significance attached to climate change issues, the legitimate authority granted to the coordinating agency, and human and financial capitals. Collaboration is hampered by limited span of network engagement, inadequate authority of the primary network participants, insufficient input and output legitimacy of the sectoral innovations, and missing linkages across functionally segregated sectors. The book concludes that the enhanced collaboration and coordination between networks that has emerged in the process of low carbon transitions is transforming the Chinese environmental state into a more pluralistic, inclusive and legitimate one. This book will be of interest to researchers and practitioners across disciplines including Chinese studies, environmental politics and policy, urban studies, and planning and geography.

The People's Republic of China (PRC) is taking concerted efforts and making large investments to peak out its carbon dioxide emissions around 2030. While current efforts are prioritizing accelerated energy efficiency and rapid expansion of renewables and nuclear in the energy mix, the fossil fuel related carbon dioxide emissions are still expected to rise even under a'new normal'growth strategies in the PRC. This brings in renewed emphasis on carbon capture and storage (CCS), which is currently the only near-commercial technologies to make deep cuts (up to 90%) in carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel related power plants and industries. This report draws on relevant technical assistance from Asian Development Bank (ADB), consultants'reports, and the work of ADB staff to assess the potential, the barriers and the challenges in demonstrating and deploying CCS in the PRC. It identifies unique low cost opportunities, recommends a gradual two phase approach to CCS deployment in the PRC and, provides complementary suite of policy actions to enable it.

China is an integral actor in any movement that will stabilize the global climate at conditions suited to sustainable development for its own population and for people living around the world. Assessments of China's climatic-system consequences, impact, and responsibilities need to take into account the strengths, weaknesses, and potential of subnational governments, non-governmental organizations, transnational non-state connections, and the urban populace in reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. A multitude of recent local initiatives that have engaged subnational China in actions that mitigate emissions can be enhanced by powerful framings that appeal to citizen concerns about air pollution and health conditions.China Confronts Climate Change offers the first fully comprehensive account of China's response to climate change, based on engagement with the global climate governance literature and current debates over responsibility along with specific insights into the Chinese context. Responsible implementation of any overarching climate agreement depends on expanding China's subnational contributions. To remain fully informed about GHG-emissions mitigation, China watchers and climate-change monitors need to pay close attention to bottom-up developments.The book provides a valuable contemporary resource for students, scholars, and policy leaders at all levels of governance who are concerned with climate change, environmental politics, and sustainable urban development.