We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
To save content items to your account,
please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies.
If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account.
Find out more about saving content to .
To save content items to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected]
is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings
on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part
of your Kindle email address below.
Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations.
‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi.
‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Edited by
Alan Fenna, Curtin University, Perth,Sébastien Jodoin, McGill University, Montréal,Joana Setzer, London School of Economics and Political Science
Despite being an authoritarian state, China has adopted a quasi-federalist system to combat climate change. This chapter first introduces the structures and operations of China’s quasi-federalist system. Vertically, there are five hierarchical levels of bureaucracy. Horizontally, there are party committee, government, and environmental and ecological agencies at each level. Power is dynamically distributed vertically and horizontally. This chapter elaborates on the five mechanisms embedded in the quasi-federalist system, namely a target-responsibility system, the inclusion of environmental performance in local officials’ promotion assessment, fiscal incentives, the central inspection system for ecological and environmental protection, and public participation. We then conduct a case analysis of the low-carbon pilot policy in China to explain how each mechanism functions at each stage of the policy process. It shows that China’s quasi-federalist system in climate governance features centralized decision-making, supervision, and evaluation, together with decentralized implementation. China’s environmental quasi-federalism has allowed local governments to experiment with diverse and innovative solutions to climate change, but it has also experienced some challenges as demonstrated in the fragmented patchwork of policies at local levels of government. Overall, China’s environmental quasi-federalism has been effective in climate governance even though it has some drawbacks.
Recommend this
Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this to your organisation's collection.