Energy and Environmental Policy in China: Towards a Low Carbon Economy

摘要

Anyone interested in energy and/or environmental policy cannot move far before they encounter the question of China's contribution. Already the world's second largest economy and the largest carbon emitter, China's need for energy can easily appear to be an insurmountable obstacle to any serious effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as well as being a significant and not always benign factor in the global energy security equation. While China can thus appear as a somewhat threatening presence on the world stage, the picture quickly becomes more nuanced when one considers the extent to which sustained economic growth in the country is important for the health of the global economy as a whole.