Exploring low-carbon pilot city policy implementation: evidence from China

Shihong Guo

Climate Policy, 2023, vol. 23, issue 8, 1045-1057

Abstract: China has established three rounds of low-carbon pilot city initiatives. However, a gap exists between policy making and successful implementation, and the effects on greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction were found to be different among pilots. This paper considers the question of how low-carbon policies in cities can be implemented effectively and how policy combinations are adopted for GHG emissions reduction. It uses a mixed research approach, including Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and field investigation in Pilot Y (situated in the southwest China). The results show that, first, financial support and monitoring systems are necessary conditions, while political leadership is a sufficient condition. This means that the absence of financial support or monitoring systems could lead to increased GHG emissions, while the presence of political leadership always promotes the reduction of GHG emissions but may not be sufficient on its own to achieve them. Second, the target responsibility system (TRS) – a system used by higher government levels to assess the policy implementation of lower government levels – and human resource mechanisms cannot effectively lead to the promotion of GHG emissions reduction. Finally, in the absence of TRS and human resource mechanisms, environmental information disclosure (EID) was found to effectively promote low-carbon urban development by encouraging public participation. This paper reveals the complexity of the implementation of low-carbon policies in cities, identifies the link between city-level and national action, and enriches the theoretical explanation of governance and low-carbon policy implementation gaps in China.Key policy insights China’s low-carbon pilot city project is critical for reducing GHG emissions, however, the effects of the low-carbon pilot city programmes varied greatly.Financial support and monitoring systems are necessary conditions, while political leadership is a sufficient condition to achieve cities’ GHG emissions reduction goals.Local low-carbon development is limited and not put into practice at the city level in China, in part because of the absence of financial support and limited political attention.This study highlights the key conditions of organizational behaviour at the meso-level, and enriches the theoretical explanation of environmental policy implementation gaps in China.

Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/14693062.2022.2140096 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:tcpoxx:v:23:y:2023:i:8:p:1045-1057

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/tcpo20

DOI: 10.1080/14693062.2022.2140096

Access Statistics for this article

Climate Policy is currently edited by Professor Michael Grubb

More articles in Climate Policy from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().