Tag Archives: low-carbon development

Wuxi: a low carbon future city?

Dienst, Carmen; Schneider, Clemens; Xia, Chun; Saurat, Mathieu; Fischer, Thomas; Vallentin, Daniel (2013) On track to become a low carbon future city? First findings of the integrated status quo and trends assessment of the pilot city of Wuxi in China. Sustainability. 5 (8) pp.3224-3243. doi:10.3390/su5083224

The Low Carbon Future Cities (LCFC) project aims at facing a three dimensional challenge by developing an integrated city roadmap balancing: low carbon development, gains in resource efficiency and adaptation to climate change. The paper gives an overview of the first outcomes of the analysis of the status quo and assessment of the most likely developments regarding GHG emissions, climate impacts and resource use in Wuxi—the Chinese pilot city for the LCFC project. As a first step, a detailed emission inventory following the IPCC guidelines for Wuxi has been carried out. In a second step, the future development of energy demand and related CO2 emissions in 2050 were simulated in a current policy scenario (CPS). In parallel, selected aspects of material and water flows for the energy and the building sector were analyzed and modeled. In addition, recent and future climate impacts and vulnerability were investigated. Based on these findings, nine key sectors with high relevance to the three dimensions could be identified. Although Wuxi’s government has started a path to implement a low carbon plan, the first results show that, for the shift towards a sustainable low carbon development, more ambitious steps need to be taken in order to overcome the challenges faced.

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Monique Abud

Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine, EHESS, Paris, France

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Chinese impacts and impacting China

The new issue of Journal of Current Chinese Affairs is entitled  Chinese Impacts and Impacting China (See the the introduction written by Giese Karten: Chinese Impacts and Impacting China, Full Text: PDF (English).

The Journal of Current Chinese Affairs is a journal both print and online is devoted to the economic and political rise of the People’s Republic of China has stirred widespread debates on China’s potential and actual impact on both the international system and individual countries. At the same time, however, individual countries and global systems alike have always impacted developments in China, although these processes previously attracted much less scholarly attention. This issue of the Journal of Current Chinese Affairs presents a selection of exemplary cases relating to both phenomena that cover different areas of research. This collection of research articles demonstrates that increasing integration within the world system can never be regarded as a one-way street and involves impacting and being impacted simultaneously.

The online version can be found at www.CurrentChineseAffairs.org. It is published by GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Institute of Asian Studies in cooperation with the National Institute of Chinese Studies, White Rose East Asia Centre at the Universities of Leeds and Sheffield and Hamburg University Press.

This issue propose several articles on the environment in China.

Rasmus Lema, Axel Berger, Hubert Schmitz (2013), China’s Impact on the Global Wind Power Industry

Abstract

China’s economic rise has transformed the global economy in a number of manufacturing industries. This paper investigates whether China’s transformative influence extends to the new green economy. Drawing on the debate about how China is driving major economic changes in the world – the “Asian drivers” debate – it identifies five corridors of influence and investigates their relevance for the wind energy industries. Starting with the demand side, it suggests that the size and rapid growth of the Chinese market have a major influence on competitive parameters in the global wind power industry. While Western firms have found ways of participating in the growth of the Chinese market, the government’s procurement regimes benefit Chinese firms. The latter have invested heavily and learned fast, accumulating production capabilities that have led to changes in the global pecking order of lead firms. While the combined impact of Chinese market and production power is already visible, other influences are beginning to be felt – arising from China’s coordination, innovation and financing power.
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Axel Berger, Doris Fischer, Rasmus Lema, Hubert Schmitz, Frauke Urban (2013), China–Europe Relations in the Mitigation of Climate Change: A Conceptual Framework

Abstract

Despite the large-scale investments of both China and the EU in climate-change mitigation and renewable-energy promotion, the prevailing view on China–EU relations is one of conflict rather than cooperation. In order to evaluate the prospects of cooperation between China and the EU in these policy fields, empirical research has to go beyond simplistic narratives. This paper suggests a conceptual apparatus that will help researchers better understand the complexities of the real world. The relevant actors operate at different levels and in the public and private sectors. The main message of the paper is that combining the multi-level governance and value-chain approaches helps clarify the multiple relationships between these actors.
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Andreas Hofem, Sebastian Heilmann (2013), Bringing the Low-Carbon Agenda to China: A Study in Transnational Policy Diffusion

Abstract

This study traces the transnational interactions that contributed to introducing the low-carbon economy agenda into Chinese policymaking. A microprocessual two-level analysis (outside-in as well as inside-access) is employed to analyse transnational and domestic exchanges. The study provides evidence that low-carbon agenda-setting – introduced by transnational actors, backed by foreign funding, promoted by policy entrepreneurs from domestic research institutes, propelled by top-level attention, but only gradually and cautiously adopted by the government bureaucracy – can be considered a case of effective transnational diffusion based on converging perceptions of novel policy challenges and options. Opinion leaders and policy-brokers from the government-linked scientific community functioned as effective access points to the Chinese government’s policy agenda.

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Jacqueline Nivard

Jacqueline Nivard, Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine

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