Local Climate Governance in China

Climate change and China have become the buzz words in the effort to fight global warming. China has now become the world's leading host country for the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), a mechanism to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This surprising success story reveals how market mechanisms work out well even in countries with economies in transition and market actors that are public-private hybrids. Miriam Schroeder analyzes how local semi-public agencies have performed in the diffusion process for spreading knowledge and capacity for CDM. Based on extensive research of four provincial CDM centers, she discloses how these agencies contributed to kick-starting the local Chinese carbon market. Findings reveal that the CDM center approach is a recommendable, but improvable model for other countries in need for local CDM capacity development. It is also shown that hybrid actors in emerging economies like China need to improve their accountability if they are indeed to contribute to public goods provision for environmental governance.