IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jenpmg/v63y2020i1p109-126.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Climate experimentation and the limits of top-down control: local variation of climate pilots in China

Author

Listed:
  • Kevin Lo
  • He Li
  • Kang Chen

Abstract

The Low-Carbon Pilot (LCP) program in China is an important national initiative aiming to facilitate climate experimentation. Thus far, 87 local governments have become climate pilots and are tasked with developing innovative climate solutions with the hope that these innovations can be applied nationally. The LCP adopts a uniquely Chinese approach to policymaking that is characterized by both bottom-up experimentation and top-down control and has been described as a success in the official discourse. However, using two case studies from Guangdong and Jilin, we show that there could be significant variation in performance and willingness to conduct experimentation among the climate pilots. The presence of variation suggests that the top-down steering mechanisms of the LCP are not conducive to climate experimentation and have the unintended consequences of encouraging risk-averse behaviors. We further show that local factors – leadership support, communities of practice, and alignment of interests – are important factors enabling success.

Suggested Citation

  • Kevin Lo & He Li & Kang Chen, 2020. "Climate experimentation and the limits of top-down control: local variation of climate pilots in China," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 63(1), pages 109-126, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:jenpmg:v:63:y:2020:i:1:p:109-126
    DOI: 10.1080/09640568.2019.1619539
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09640568.2019.1619539
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09640568.2019.1619539?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zhang, Zhenbo & Wang, Jingwen, 2022. "Undermining or remodeling: Effects of leadership rotation on the effectiveness of authoritarian environmentalism in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    2. Qi Sun & Qiaosheng Wu & Jinhua Cheng & Pengcheng Tang & Siyao Li & Yantuo Mei, 2020. "How Industrialization Stage Moderates the Impact of China’s Low-Carbon Pilot Policy?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(24), pages 1-23, December.
    3. Wang, Lianghu & Shao, Jun & Ma, Yatian, 2023. "Does China's low-carbon city pilot policy improve energy efficiency?," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 283(C).
    4. Song, Qijiao & Qin, Ming & Wang, Ruichen & Qi, Ye, 2020. "How does the nested structure affect policy innovation?: Empirical research on China's low carbon pilot cities," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:jenpmg:v:63:y:2020:i:1:p:109-126. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CJEP20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.