Climate Governance and China’s Role

Global climate governance is an important agenda for China in the face of the drastic changes unseen in a century. After more than 30 years of hard work， China’s understanding of the regularity of global climate governance and logic of action both become clear. A new international competition with carbon neutrality as the goal has already begun in the trade-off between individual rationality and collective rationality. China’s active participation in the process of global climate governance demonstrates its sense of responsibility as a major country.

GLOBAL CLIMATE GOVERNANCE AS PUBLIC GOODS

As a typical global issue， climate change involves many subjects， and no country can stay safe alone. As a result， countries must rely on international cooperation to tackle climate change. They need to set up mechanisms of cooperation to resolve the conflicts between individual and collective rationality.

The emission right is usually regarded as the right to development. Setting emission reduction obligations for various countries is in essence making space for future carbon emissions. The ultimate goal of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is to maintain the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at a stable and safe level. However， with the understanding of the concept of carbon budget as well as that emission right is the right to development， countries have a zero-sum game mentality. As a result， the global climate negotiations have fallen into deadlocks for many times especially when the global carbon emission pattern were undergoing significant changes.

Characterized by global public field and global public goods， climate governance needs to solve the problems of cost and leadership while providing public goods for global climate governance. How to uphold the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and how to fairly share the costs of climate governance are both global issues that test the political wisdom of leaders of all countries.

The Kyoto Protocol， reached under the guidance of the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities， took the lead in providing legally binding greenhouse gas emission reduction obligations for developed countries. That is， the overall greenhouse gas emissions by all developed countries between 2008 and 2012 shall decrease by 5.2% compared with that of 1990. However， the Bush administration of the United States announced its refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol in March 2001， in excuse that emission reduction will harm the U.S. economy， there’s no convincing scientific basis for global warming and the inaction of developing countries is unfair to the United States. Although the Kyoto Protocol finally entered into force on February 16th， 2005 after eight years， the position of the United States foreshadowed the unsuccessful outcome of the Copenhagen Climate Conference.

Along with the rapid growth of greenhouse gas emissions in emerging economies including China， India， Brazil， South Africa and Mexico， developed countries believed that all countries should take common responsibilities for climate change. The Copenhagen Conference on institutional arrangements for addressing climate change after 2012 did not succeed due to the top-down mentality of the negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol. Since then， it was very difficult to make progress in the negotiations， showing the infeasibility of the top-down model. As a result， the voice for changing the global climate governance system kept rising.

The 2015 Paris Climate Conference adopted a bottom-up model featuring autonomous contributions by each country to set targets for emission reduction， which contributed to a breakthrough in the traditional mechanism featuring allocating responsibilities. This model， fully taking into account the national circumstances of each party， conducive to mobilizing the widest range of participants to give full play to their advantages. However， with non-mandatory nature， the autonomous national contribution targets under the Paris Agreement can only be achieved through the fulfillment of the commitments by all parties， which makes it difficult to ensure that they are fully met ultimately.

LEADERSHIP CHANGES OF GLOBAL CLIMATE GOVERNANCE

In terms of greenhouse gas emission patterns， developed countries accounted for 68% and developing countries for 32% of global greenhouse gas emissions in 1990; by 2008， they were roughly equal， with developed countries accounting for 51% and developing countries for 49% of emissions. In terms of changes in emission trends， historical cumulative emissions in developed countries are high and emissions in developing countries are growing fast. Major changes in the landscape of global greenhouse gas emissions have largely increased the divergence between developed and developing countries on the core issues of the negotiations （e.g. responsibilities and obligations， financial issues， etc.）， and the gap in the leadership of climate negotiations has also widened.

While the new bottom-up climate governance mechanism under the Paris Agreement has eased the tit-for-tat situation between developed and developing countries， it has weakened global leadership and made the implementation of the Paris Agreement， which already lacked coercive power， less ambitious. Therefore， there is an urgent need for emissions players such as China， the United States and Europe to exercise leadership. Leadership by major powers is essentially an ability to influence collective cooperation and is necessary to drive consensus on global climate governance.