Reformulating the low-carbon green growth strategy in China

Zhang, Yongsheng

doi:10.1080/14693062.2015.1094726

Cited by 19 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 55 publications

(50 reference statements)

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“…It is notable that interest in green growth emerged following the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, with notable institutions such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) seeing the strategy as a twin economic and ecological solution (Girouard 2011;Borel-Saladin and Turok 2013;Ferguson 2015). Prior to emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic there was a growing perception that green growth was failing to deliver the required pace and scale of carbon-emissions reductions at national or international level (Zhang 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A socio-technical transitions perspective for assessing future sustainability following the COVID-19 pandemic

Wells

Abouarghoub

Pettit

et al. 2020

Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy

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This policy brief argues that the COVID-19 pandemic exposes the fractures in the contemporary global socio-technical order and offers the prospects of several different alternative futures. The policy brief explores the pandemic through the lens of the multi-level perspective on socio-technical transitions. The pandemic is framed as a meta-transition event at the landscape level of unprecedented scale, pace, and pervasiveness such that it permeates all socio-technical regimes simultaneously. The prospects for the future are then defined on a matrix that compares the strength of civil society and that of economic structures. The result is four distinct scenarios that are linked to contemporary discourses on socioeconomic futures: business as usual; managed transition; chaotic transition; and managed degrowth. The scenarios are presented as a starting point for policy discussion and the engagement of societal actors to define social and economic possibilities for the future, and the implications that the different futures would have for ecological burdens. It is concluded that the COVID 19 pandemic can act as a catalytic event in which the legitimacy and efficacy of existing economic and political structures will be challenged and reshaped, and hence is an opportunity to redefine the ecological burdens our activities create.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A socio-technical transitions perspective for assessing future sustainability following the COVID-19 pandemic

Wells

Abouarghoub

Pettit

et al. 2020

Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy

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“…For example, Tao et al [79] found that enterprises in Qingdao perceive low carbon strategies as unaffordable or a premature concept. However, Zhang et al [40] found that increasing LC policies has not reduced economic growth as anticipated. A study by Shen et al [12] in Beijing indicated that LCC has fostered green industries and brought impressive quality improvements, including structural change, and increased employment.…”

Section: Integrationmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…The lessons learned served as guides for subsequent pilot projects launched in 2012 (batch 2) and 2014 (batch 3; see Figure 1), [35,38] and allowed local governments to apply low carbon interventions into their planning and management models. Furthermore, the government has explored scientific approaches that undergird development in a sustainability realm [33], and national policies that advance China's utopian vision of an LCC [39,40]. These approaches and policies are disseminated in the 18th Chinese Congress declaration and report of ecological civilization (2012) [1,23,41], the 12th (2011-2015) and 13th (2016-2020) Five Years Plans (FYPs) [42], and the National New-type Urbanization Plan (2014-2020) [6].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Responding to these challenges, pilot provinces and cities have embarked on a substantial transformation of the urban energy system into a sustainable realm. This is geared towards meeting China's short and long-term goals of increasing the share of non-fossil fuel from 9.2% in 2014 to 15% and 20% in 2020 and 2030 respectively [40,57,123]. Although these projections are optimistic, it is still difficult to alter the ethos of coal and gas, which will contribute to 55% of the primary energy mix in 2050 [124].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sustainability of Low Carbon City Initiatives in China: A Comprehensive Literature Review

Hunter

Sagoe²,

Vettorato

et al. 2019

Sustainability

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Low carbon city (LCC) has emerged as the latest sustainable urbanism strategy in China as a response to climate change impacts. Yet, minimal scholarships have explored the sustainability of the urban planning model towards understanding the complexity of the components. Using a two-step triangulation approach, this paper presents a structured overview of the LCC initiative in China as it relates to the transition to a sustainability paradigm. The data collection approach includes a comprehensive review of 238 articles on LCC to identify and categorize LCC components. Furthermore, discourse and framing analysis was used to develop and synthesize a conceptual framework for assimilating the components into four core sustainable development principles: Integration, implementation, equity, and scalability and replicability. The results indicate that LCC development in China is bias towards economic and environmental technological innovations and strategies. Additionally, several critical sustainability issues of LCC pilots were identified. These include a lack of social equity planning concerns for the most vulnerable population, dearth of social reforms that cater to lifestyle and behavioral change, top-down planning and decision-making processes, a technocratic rationalization planning approach, inconsistent LCC targets on inter-generational justice concerns, absence of an effective national "sharing and learning" city-city network system, and several barriers to implementation. We conclude that the applied theoretical and conceptual inquiry into the field of LCC is pertinent to mitigate climate change and achieve sustainable urban development.Sustainability 2019, 11, 4342 2 of 37 consumption [14][15][16][17]. This increasing energy consumption and coal dependency of the urban energy system has increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as China has become the world's largest energy consumer and carbon emitter [18,19]. A recent report by the National Bureau of Statistics [20] suggests that despite a decline in GHG emissions between 2013 and 2016, emissions grew by 2.3% in 2018 due to a surge in urban construction. Therefore, after three decades of rapid physical and socio-spatial modernization, the country is facing significant negative externalities [16]. Local environmental pollution [6,16,[21][22][23], ecological deterioration [24], and energy shortage [21,25] have created health risks [26], have affected people's quality of life [27], and resulted in substantial economic losses [28] in megacities such as Tianjin and Beijing [29]. Concomitantly, China's cities are vulnerable to climate change impacts [17,30], as some cities have inadequate seawall defenses in low-lying areas [5], and are therefore exposed to flooding and extreme rainstorms [23]. In addition to this, some experience droughts from reduced precipitation, which can be attributed to low urban institutional capacity that creates limitations in climate governance and planning [31]. These complex and intractable problems have heralded a call for action, t...

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“…Xiong et al (2017) compared the allowance mechanism of China's carbon trading pilots with alternative schemes in the EU and California. Zhang (2015) reformulated the low-carbon green growth strategy in China. considered emissions trading in China in terms of progress and future prospects.…”

Section: Brief Literature Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%