Three Decades of Climate Policymaking in China: A View of Learning

Climate policymaking in China has gone through three major phases over the course of three decades. This paper applies the concept of policy learning to an analysis of what the Chinese government has learned about climate policymaking during this period. Our analysis shows that this thirty-year history of climate policymaking can be viewed as a conceptual learning process because the Chinese government has continuously adjusted the problem definition of climate change, redefined climate policy goals, and updated climate strategies. First, the Chinese leadership has redefined climate change from a scientific and diplomatic problem, to a developmental and strategic issue, and finally to an overarching grand strategy guiding national development in the next forty years. Second, the Chinese government has fundamentally redefined its climate policy goal from avoiding climate action so as to foster economic development to reinvigorating economic development through climate action. Third, the Chinese government has updated its climate change strategy from solely emphasizing climate mitigation to a more balanced consideration of mitigation and adaptation, and from state-dominant governance processes to more diversified governance processes that involve the participation of the corporate sector and a greater a role of the law.