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Cities in GLOCAL Climate Governance:
Cases in Beijing
DRAFT
For 2016 ISA Asia-Pacific Conference, Hong Kong
June 27, 2016
Li Li
Assistant Research Fellow, China Foreign Policies Studies Center, China Foreign
Affairs University (CFAU);
Research Fellow, China Diplomacy Theory and Practices Collaborative Innovation
Center, CFAU & Center for China and Globalization (CCG);
2011-2012 China-U.S. Fulbright Ph.D. Candidate at University of Connecticut
(UConn).
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Abstract
Climate governance is a kind of global pure public goods. The warming effects of
global greenhouse gases (GHGs) cannot be isolated from regional or local causes,
and local extreme weathers can often find reasons from regional or global
warming. The intertwined causal relations between multi-level actors make
different actors collaborate innovatively. Beijing, the Capital of China, faced with
great environment governance challenges, has made much progress in recent
years. Multi-level actors in Beijing act locally, but think globally. They carry out
“GLOCAL” practices through transnational public-private partnerships (TPPPs),
such as clean development mechanism (CDM) and voluntary carbon market
(VCM). In those TPPP cases, local actors tend to create public-private hybrids to
break bottlenecks in existent political, economic and cultural institutions,
achieving low carbon goals in a four-stage life cycle: first, defining local
constraints by learning “best practice”; second, setting up public-private hybrids
consisted of key stakeholders; third, building low carbon capacities by making
full use of public and private resources; fourth, internalizing local experience by
disseminating know-how into a new spiral of evolution.
Key words: GLOCAL, climate governance, public-private partnerships (PPPs),
public goods, Beijing
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When we fly over the Asia-Pacific area, we may wonder about various skies above
the clouds: Why are the skies so locally different? What differences are there in the
localities to achieve common goals of climate governance?
Climate governance is an unprecedented “public goods” provision issue in need
of international cooperation in human history. Climate governance norms were
initiated by United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC),
and have recently witnessed a great progress in the reaching of Paris Agreement
on December 12, 2015. Since Kyoto Protocol was signed in December 1997, an
international agreement finally comes into being after 18 years of negotiation.
According to Article 21 of Paris Agreement, the agreement shall not enter into
force only when over 55 Parties to the Convention, accounting for more than 55%
of global GHG emissions, deposit their instruments of ratification, acceptance,
approval or accession (UNFCCC, 2015: 15).
Although there has been a scientific consensus that human-induced emissions of
greenhouse gases (GHGs, including CO2, CH4, N20, HFCs, PFCs and SF6) have
caused dramatic climate changes since the industrial revolution in 1860s,
manifest in the Assessment Reports (ARs) of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) (Oreskes & Conway, 2010: 268-269; Hoggan & Littlemore, 2009;
Mann, 2012), GHGs emission reduction is more complex, and nation states are
facing more challenges than ever before. It’s very much different from the
situation when Montreal Protocol for Ozone Depletion Substances (ODS) was
signed in 1987 (amended in 1990, 1992, 1995, 1997 and 1999). It needs local
actors, together with nation state governments, to share more responsibilities.
This paper will take Beijing as an example to show what roles a city could play to
assist nation states in global climate governance.
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I. A Brief Review of Beijing Low Carbon Practices
Since the convention of the 17th Communist Party of China (CPC) National
Congress in 2007, as the national political and cultural center, Beijing municipal
government has been attaching great importance on transforming economic
growth model from an extensive high-carbon one into a resource-friendly
low-carbon one, aiming to build a “culture-enriched, technology-empowered and
environment-friendly” Beijing as a global city, and this concept was further
developed with the opportunity of the 29th Olympic Games held in Beijing in
2008. In 2010, “Environment-Friendly” Beijing Action Plan (2010-2012) was
issued aiming at building a modern world city by carrying out manufacturing,
consumption and environmental protection measures. In 2011, the “global city”
goal was written in the 12th Five-year Plan of Beijing focusing on social welfare
and public culture service, science and technology (S&T) innovation through
research and development (R&D), and to develop Beijing into an intensive,
effective and eco-friendly city (Dong, 2011).
In 2013, Beijing experienced the thickest haze lasting for several days, and the
Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau (BMEPB) carried out urgent
measures during the heavily polluted period, including coercive measures to
prohibit the usage of 30% of government cars in the extremely polluted districts
(Yin, 2013). From the first transaction of clean development mechanism (CDM)
project in Daxing County to the issuance of Panda Standard by China Beijing
Environment Exchange (CBEEX), carbon market standards, both compliant and
voluntary, has been prospered in Beijing. Although the city is still featured by a
top-down administrative procedure, private enterprises, brokers, communities,
non-governmental organizations (NGOs), scholars and other relevant actors are
more and more involved into climate governance process. What’s more, they are
collaborating with each other, constructing various types of public-private
partnerships (PPPs). The most striking cooperation of public and private actors
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are carbon markets.
II. The 1st CDM Project of China and CDM Centers
In 1997, when the Kyoto Protocol was signed, 3 flexible mechanisms—emission
trading (ET), joint implementation (JI), and CDM were introduced as additional
means of meeting countries’ mitigation targets, known as the “carbon market”
(UNFCCC, 2012a; Chen, 2008). With respect to the principle of Common but
Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) (UNFCCC, 1992: 1, 4, 5; UNEP, 2000: 1, 2,
25-30, 32, 34), developed and developing countries undertake different
responsibilities in tackling with climate threats. In late 2001, the 7th Conference
of Parties (COP7) passed the Marrakesh Accord, setting transaction methods and
development procedures of the CDM projects. In 2005, the Kyoto Protocol came
into force with the ratification of Russia, achieving coverage of 55% of global CO2
emissions.
As expressed in the Copenhagen Accord and the Cancun Agreement, developing
countries are encouraged to take nationally appropriate mitigation actions
(NAMAS) on voluntary basis according to their specific situation (UNFCCC, 2009,
2010). Carbon exchanges with a mandate “cap” of emissions are known as
compliant carbon markets (CCMs). CCMs are featured by “compliant access,
compliant mitigation”, for they are legally bound by the Kyoto framework and the
exchange volumes of CCMs are recorded in their carbon market tracing system.1
Currently, the “best practice” of CCM is in the European Union Emissions Trading
1 Countries’ targets are expressed as levels of allowed emissions, or “assigned amounts,” over the 2008-2012 commitment period, and the allowed emissions are divided into “assigned amount units” (AAUs). ET, as set out in Article 17 of the Kyoto Protocol, allows countries that have emission units to spare to sell this excess capacity to countries that are over their targets. JI, defined in Article 6, allows a country with an emission reduction or limitation commitment under the Kyoto Protocol (Annex B Party) to earn “emission reduction units” (ERUs) from an emission-reduction or emission removal project in another Annex B Party, each equivalent to one tonne of CO2 (The frequently used unit is MtCO2e, million tonnes of CO2 equivalent), offering Parties a flexible and cost-efficient means of fulfilling a part of their Kyoto commitments, while the host Party benefits from foreign investment and technology transfer. CDM, defined in Article 12, allows an Annex B Party to implement an emission-reduction project in developing countries, which can earn saleable “certified emission reduction” (CER) credits, which is the first global, environmental investment and credit scheme of its kind. Therefore, CDM is seen as a trailblazer (UNFCCC, 1998; 2012a, b, c).
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Scheme (EU ETS). Another effective mechanism is the CDM, and China is the
world’s biggest CDM host country, demonstrating its momentum in a governance
pattern of public-private hybrids (Schröder, 2012: 2).
1. The 1st CDM Project, Beijing, China
The first CDM project applied by China was the Anding Landfill Gas (LFG) Project
in Daxing District, 40 km south of the downtown of Beijing. The initiator of this
project, Zhang Yimeng, vice CEO of Beijing Jifeng Industrial Investment
Management Company, suggested the CDM mechanism to Liu Xiuchang, vice
director of Beijing Erqing Environment Sanitation Engineering Group Co. Ltd.
(Erqing), the owner of Anding Landfill (later merged as a branch of Beijing
Environmental Sanitation Engineering Group Ltd.), to apply technology from
Transpacific New Zealand (TPI NZ) to reduce methane (CH4) emission of solid
waste from 4,004 tons in 2005 down to 1,551 tons in 2014. The three
transnational public and private organizations signed a CDM project, starting this
landfill methane sequestration project from July 2002 (Zhang, 2007: 23).
By March 1, 2005, Jifeng Industrial Investment Management Co. has invested
over 20 million RMB yuan in Anding LFG Project, mainly for purchases and
installment of equipment. Since CDM project was a newly emerging mechanism,
there was no experience to be borrowed. They were “crossing the river by feeling
the stones”. From July 2002 to June 2004, there was no official CDM
administrative organization in China in charge of the project application,
approval and other complex procedures, and people were worrying about
possible invalidity of Kyoto Protocol if there were no enough depositories
ratifying the protocol. From project design to the emission reduction credits
approval and issuance. Documents prepared were more than one foot thick.
Luckily, they witnessed the successful test run in 2005 (Zhang, 2007: 23-24).
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In June 2004, “Interim Procedure of the CDM Project Management” signed by
National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), Ministry of Science and
Technology (MOST) and Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) came into operation.
Anding Landfill Project was first approved as the No.1 CDM project in China. In
May 2006, the UN representatives came to Anding Landfill and estimated the
carbon emission reduction amount as 50,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent
(CO2e), on the basis of emission volume from January 2005 to April 2006. Usually,
the estimation is higher than the actual amount.
Except for the inaccuracy of estimated emission volume, the price of certified
carbon credits is also volatile, which could go up and down between 200 RMB
yuan or so in a month (Zhang, 2007: 24). To protect the interests of enterprises
involved in CDM projects, NDRC set a reference price ($5 in 2004 and €8 later) as
a “threshold price”, under which application of CDM projects would not be
approved domestically. Later it was proved that this price did not hinder the
foreign direct investment (FDI) from the Annex I countries of the Kyoto Protocol,
but became a “best practice” for global carbon market (Schröder, 2009: 379-380).
In 2004, the World Bank price for CO2e per ton is $4.2, according to which the
estimated benefits for Anding Landfill CDM project would be at most $210,000
(about 1.6 million RMB yuan), which estimation was made on the condition that
the optimistically predicted 50,000 tons of CO2e could be realized. Comparing
with 20 million RMB yuan of preliminary investments, that amount of funding
could not be enough even for daily equipment maintenance (Zhang, 2007: 24).
Table 1 TPPP of Anding LFG Project with Public-Private Interactions
stakeholders identity provision
1 Zhang Yimeng, Beijing Jifeng Industrial Investment Management Company
Private CDM Advisory Agency
Initiator and preliminary investments.
2 Liu Xiuchang, Erqing (Owner of Anding Landfill)
Carbon Source (hybrid SOE)
Landfill gas collection and utilization.
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3 Energy Systems International (ESI) (Netherlands)
Carbon Sink Funding to buy reduced emission credits.
4 Transpacific New Zealand (TPI NZ) International Waste Dealer
Technology application.
5 UNFCCC International Organization
Emission volume estimation and verification.
6 National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC)
National Designated Authority (NDA)
“Interim Procedure of the CDM Project Management”; Setting “threshold price”.
7 Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST)
National Government
“Interim Procedure of the CDM Project Management”; Administration of CDM Centers at provincial level.
8 Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) National Government
“Interim Procedure of the CDM Project Management”.
9 Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau (BMEPB)
Local Government
Measures to reduce GHG emission in extremely polluted districts.
10 Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) of China
Government
Publicizing major pollutants reduction status, introducing “best practices” among local actors.
As Table 1 illustrates, Anding LFG Project is a TPPP project (with shadow) among
five parties, including the UNFCCC as international organization as CDM project
registration authority. Around this TPPP project, there has been a lot of
public-private interactions (without shadow) providing “timing” for the
possibility of the five parties initiating “partnership”.
According to Figure 1, public and private stakeholders have been working
individually before they become partners in the Anding LFG project. Many
coincidental factors facilitates them to collaborate with each other under the
CDM mechanism. The most important two actors are carbon source (Erqing) and
carbon sink (ESI), but they could not meet each other without the initiator (Jifeng
Industrial). Such a CDM project would not become possible if TPI NZ doesn't
apply its sophisticated technology and rich experience in solid waste disposal
(TPI NZ).
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Figure 1 Diagram of Anding LFG Project with Public and Private Stakeholders
Multilevel actors involved in Anding LFG project could be categorized into 3
groups—international, national, and local (see the upper right box in Figure 1).
According to their organizational identity, they could also be divided into 3
kinds—public, private and hybrid.
The hybrid actor, Erqing, is a state-owned enterprise (SOE) based on Yiqing
Group, Erqing Group, Siqing Group and Beiqing Group, which could be traced
back to 1949. At the beginning, Erqing was established by Beijing Municipal
Government. Later, in 2006, it grows into a joint stock company, with a registered
fund of 900 million RMB yuan and a total asset of 1,700 million RMB yuan,
employing more than 5,000 workers. It is now the largest and best SOE in
environment sanitation of Beijing (Beijing Erqing Environment Sanitation
Engineering Group Co. Ltd., 2014). As an SOE, Erqing has its communist party
secretary-general as one of the top leaders, parallel to company manager. Its
hybrid identity doesn’t impede its business operation, but providing more
opportunities for the enterprises to be informed of national and local public
environment policies.
1
2
Joining Time
Relevance
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
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International Actor
5. UNFCCC (public)
3. ESI (private)
4. TPI NZ (private)
National Actors
6. NDRC (public)
7. MOST (public)
8. MFA (public)
10. MEP (public)
Local Actors
9. BMEPB (public)
1. Jifeng Industrial (private)
2. Erqing (hybrid)
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Figure 2 TPPP Model of the 1st Beijing Anding LFG CDM Project
Usually, local capacity building and “best practice” sharing in China often takes
place according to what governments are in great need of (Schröder, 2012:
45-46), but the Anding Landfill project was an exception. In 2002, there were no
CDM-relevant public policies and administrative institutions, Erqing launched
this project just because this enterprise would like to learn from foreign peers in
both innovative technology and involvement into international climate
governance mechanism. Anding LFG Project could be analyzed as a TPPP model
with international public (IPU) and private (IPR) stakeholders and local private
(LHY) and hybrid actors (LPR) (See Figure 2)
Before the Kyoto Protocol came into effect in 2005, Jifeng Industrial concentrated
its attention on Anding LFG Project. After that, it rapidly started numerous CDM
projects including wind power, hydropower, coal bed gas, etc. In the same year,
Jifeng merged into ESI, carrying out CDM projects in China as a sole agent of ESI,
actively playing its role of a carbon emission credits buyer (Zhang, 2007: 27).
2. Hybrids of Provincial CDM Centers
According to the experience of the first CDM projects, Chinese government
realized that CDM project could be a “win-win” mechanism for China, but there
International Public, IPU
Local Private, LPR
Local Hybrid, LHY International Private, IPR
International Private, IPR
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are many risks to be managed with international collaboration of both public and
private actors. Therefore, a national CDM project management system was
established in June 2007. At national level, the National Leading Group on
Climate Change (NLGCC), with Premier Li Keqiang as Director, Vice Premier
Zhang Gaoli and State Councilor Yang Jiechi as Deputy Directors, 30 ministerial
leaders of relevant ministries as members. 2 NDRC acts as the designated
national authority (DNA). MOST and NDRC are national CDM co-chairs. Local
departments of S&T, local commissions of development and reform, and relevant
divisions of local governments collaboratively establish CDM Project
Management Centers (CDM Centers) in provinces of China, to provide technical
assistance for projects application.
The first CDM Center was established in Ningxia Autonomous Region in 2003, set
up by Ningxia Department of S&T and Beijing Keji Consultation Company, with
the former as a local public actor and the latter as a private consultancy (Ningxia
CDM Environmental Protection Service Center, 2012). As an “early monopolist”,
Ningxia CDM Center has the first-mover advantage. However, since it lacks
communications with private organizations, there were funding problems in the
2 The 30 members include Xiao Jie, Deputy Secretary-General of the State Council, Wang Yi,
Minister of Foreign Affairs (MFA), Xu Shaoshi, Director of NDRC, Yuan Guiren, Minister of
Ministry of Education (MOE), Wan Gang, Minister of MOST, Miao Wei, Minister of Ministry of
Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), Li Liguo, Minister of Civil Affairs (MCA), Lou
Jiwei, Minister of Finance (MOF), Jiang Daming, Minister of Land and Resources (MLR), Zhou
Shengxian, Minister of Ministry of Environment Protection (MEP), Jiang Weixin, Minister of
Housing and Urban-Rural Development (MOHURD), Yang Chuantang, Minister of Transport
(MOT), Chen Lei, Minister of Water Resources (MWR), Han Changbin, Minister of Agriculture
(MOA), Gao Hucheng, Minister of Commerce (MOC), Li Bin, Director of National Health and
Family Planning Commission, Director of State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration
Commission of the State Council (SASAC), Wang Jun, Director of State Administration of
Taxation, Zhi Shuping, Director of General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and
Quarantine, Ma Jiantang, Minister of Ministry of Statistics, Zhao Shucong, Minister of Ministry of
Forestry (MOF), Jiao Huancheng, Deputy Secretary-General of the State Council and Director of
National Government Offices Administration, Xia Yong, Deputy Director of Legislative Affairs
Office of the State Council, Bai Chunli, President of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Zheng
Guoguang, Director of China Meteorological Administration, Wu Xinxiong, Deputy Director of
NDRC and National Energy Administration (NEA), Liu Xigui, Director of State Ocean
Administration, Lu Dongfu, Vice Minister of MOT and Director of National Railway
Administration, Li Jiaxiang, Vice Minister of MOT and Minister of Civil Aviation Administration
(CAAC), and Xie Zhenhua, Deputy Director of NDRC.
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later stage (Schröder, 2012: 136-137). After Ningxia CDM Center was established,
more centers mushroomed in 27 provinces of China. Most are composed by
provincial departments of S&T and private consultancies. Among them, the
Hunan CDM Center became an “aggressive new-comer”. It built the CDM center
into a private company, administrated by governmental organizations, but
operated and managed like a real company, encouraging Hunan enterprises to
apply CDM projects through high qualified services and customer-oriented
culture. Hunan CDM Center sets an example as a private enterprise
disseminating CDM norms with government’s public support (Schröder, 2012:
140).
CDM Centers as a hybrid is like a yin-yang fish in Chinese shadow boxing, which
tries to integrate opposites by taking their advantages, while avoiding their
disadvantages, so as to make a “win-win” optimum. Innovation in governance,
either international or domestic, is a public governance institutional contribution.
Observing various patterns of public-private hybrid in CDM projects is a good
way to find what variables may be important in such a TPPP mechanism, and
how to integrate it with current political system.
III. VCM in Beijing
In December 2012, just before the Copenhagen Climate Conference was
convened, the UNFCCC CDM executive board (EB) refused 10 wind power
projects applications from China, requesting relevant authorities to make a
decision on the “additionality” of those possible investments, suspecting Chinese
government deliberatively adjusted domestic wind power price downward to
steer wind power plants to apply CDM projects. Nine wind power enterprises
made a public statement, expecting EB to reexamine the application. The key part
of that debate was about “baseline” of carbon offsetting. Since CDM projects
requires that GHG emission reduction demands of developed countries, instead
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of economic decline (hot air) or domestic incentive policies, should be the sole
reason for developing countries to apply. However, with expanding of clean
energy market and changing of regulatory environment, domestic policies may
accommodate with low-carbon practices, instead of taking the CDM “baseline”
into consideration. It’s hard for a nation like China to give up active climate
mitigation policies due to fears for failure in getting “additionality” and CDM
funding. That’s a paradox between international offsetting and domestic
low-carbon policies.
To find more alternatives to CDM, China paid more attention to voluntary carbon
markets (VCMs). VCMs are contracts not legally bound by the Kyoto framework,
but signed on a voluntary basis, with a voluntary “cap” of emissions for carbon
exchanges, featured by “voluntary access, compliant mitigation”. Standard-setting
process of VCM provides indicators for public and private actors to assess
themselves quantitatively, important for comparing mitigation practices from a
microscopic angle. The price of carbon credits, credits of exchanges, norms
innovation, local methodologies, are all crucial for climate governance
measurement.
In July 2008, China established its first VCM, the Energy-Saving and Emission
Reduction Projects Center, in Lüliang City of Shanxi Province, and had its opening
ceremony in Beijing. In August and September, China Beijing Environment
Exchange (CBEEX) and Shanghai Environment Energy Exchange were set up in
succession. In 2009, Tianjin Property Rights Exchange (TPRE) was opened. Later,
VCM exchanging platforms were seen one after another at Chengdu (Sichuan),
Wuhan (Hubei), Changsha (Hunan), Kunming (Yunnan), Hangzhou (Zhejiang),
Guangzhou (Guangdong), Shenzhen (Guangdong), and Hongkong (SEZ).
As a pioneer in VCM, CBEEX announced the 1st VCM standard, Panda Standard
V1.0, during the Copenhagen Climate Conference in 2009, which is a voluntary
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carbon emission reduction standard reflecting national conditions of China. The
idea of setting such a nation-based standard was proposed by Bi Jianzhong,
general manager assistant of CBEEX. After the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008, Bi
realized that China should have its own voluntary carbon emission reduction
standard to reduce costs in transportation, translation, and transnational
procedures. So he suggested that CBEEX may invent a carbon exchange standard
congruent with China’s situation. That suggestion was strongly supported and
started to be put into practice since September 2009.
Table 2 Setting of Panda Standard from A TPPP Perspective
stakeholders identity provision
1 Bi Jianzhong general manager assistant,
CBEEX
suggestion for standard
setting
2 Mei Dewen general manager, CBEEX naming
3 US Environmental
Defense Fund International NGO
Duke’s Law: step-by-
step guidelines for
VCM standard setting
4 BlueNext (France) international developer information sharing
5 China Forestry
Exchange
hybrid agency(MOF/Beijing
Municipal Government) domestic experience
6 Winrock International
(US) International NGO
Agriculture Standard-
setting experience
Formerly, most of China’s voluntary carbon exchanges were dealt with by Chicago
Climate Exchange (CCX). When CBEEX tried to design Panda Standard, named by
Mei Dewen, general manager of CBEEX, they decided to apply carbon offsetting
principles from “Duke’s Law”. “Duke’s Law” is a set of carbon offsetting guidelines
for farmers, foresters, land managers, and those who are interested in putting
GHG offsets into a tradable commodity, summarized by two groups of
independent scientists, sponsored by US Environmental Defense Fund since early
2004. “Duke’s Law” emphasized the competitive advantages of carbon sinkers,
for industries who emit GHGs should pay landowners and farmers who store
carbon to offset carbon emissions (Willey & Chameides, 2007: ix-x, 3). With the
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step-by-step guide of “Duke’s Law”, in the pursuit of climate mitigation and
poverty alleviation, in collaboration with BlueNext (France), China Forestry
Exchange, and Winrock International (US), CBEEX issued Panda Standard on
Copenhagen Conference on December 12 (Zhang & Huan, 2009). As Table 2
shows, the setting of Panda Standard could also be perceived as a TPPP project,
with supports from national and local governments, international NGOs, and also
hybrid enterprises.
According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), in 2008, there have been 22 main
VCM standards in use (Kollmuss, Zink, Polycarp, 2008: xi). The issuance of Panda
Standard was a cornerstone of China’s VCM. China started its exploration of ways
to coordinate national compliant low-carbon actions with international
“additionality” norms.
On September25, 2015, U.S.-China Joint Presidential Statement on Climate Change
was signed, in which President Xi declared that China will establish a nationwide
“cap-and-trade” carbon exchange system, covering industries of power, steel,
chemical engineering, etc. (Zhang, 2016) When that carbon market is put into
operation, the scale might exceed EU ETS and become the largest carbon market
in the world (CBEEX, 2015).
The first VCM applying Panda Standard was Yunnan Xishuangbanna Bamboo
Afforestation Project, certified on March 29th, 2011, in which Franshion
Properties (China) Ltd. purchased 16,800 tons of Panda Standard
voluntary emission reduction (VERs) from Yunnan Mengxiang Bamboo Industry
Co. Ltd. As the first demonstration project of Panda Standard, this project planted
59,000 hectares of dendrocalamus giganteus forests, which will restore an
ecological balance for the degraded land, so as to achieve the certification from
Forest Stewardship Council for sustainable use of forests, alleviating local
poverty through development of forestry industry (China Beijing Equity
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Exchange, 2011). Table 3 shows relevant stakeholders and their provisions in
this project.
Table 3 TPPP of Yunnan Xishuangbanna Bamboo Afforestation Project
stakeholders identity provision
1 Franshion Properties (China)
Limited carbon source Buyer
2 Yunnan Mengxiang Bamboo
Industry Co. Ltd. carbon sink VERs owner
3 French Development Agency
(afd) NGO Funding
4 French Global Environment
Facility NGO Funding
5 The Administrative Center for
China’s Agenda 21 (MOST) Government Technical support
6 The Nature Conservancy NGO Methodology
7 Yunnan CDM Center Hybrid Agency Project Design
Documents (PDDs)
8 Carbonium Private Enterprise Carbon Financing
Consultancy
9 CBEEX Hybrid Agency Carbon Exchange
Platform
10 BlueNext International Private
Enterprise
Carbon Exchange
Platform
It’s worth mentioning that this project was one of the portfolio projects of
China-France “Rural Carbon” Development and Capacity Building Project in
Yunnan and Sichuan Provinces, which is the Phase-2 project of China-France
Clean Development Mechanism (“CDM”) Cooperation since 2006. Conforming to
the Joint Declaration of China and France on Response to Climate Change reached
when President Hu Jintao visited France in November 2010, it’s a CDM project
framework on the basis of China-France international cooperation (French
Development Agency, et. al., 2013). But Yunnan Xishuangbanna Bamboo
Afforestation Project is not a CDM project, but a VCM project, applying Panda
Standard to fulfil corporate social responsibilities.
IV. Conclusion: Heterogeneous Localities, Common New Paradigm.
Political, economic and cultural diversities lead to heterogeneities for non-state
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actors to fulfil low-carbon responsibilities, but one thing seems similar--they
have to innovate. As a GLOCAL actor, Beijing carries out low-carbon practices
locally, but connects with global public goods provision system through carbon
market practices.
1. A Four-Stage Life Cycle of TPPP
In those TPPP cases, local actors tend to create public-private hybrids to break
bottlenecks in existent political, economic and cultural institutions, achieving low
carbon goals in a four-stage life cycle:
.First, defining local constraints by learning “best practice”;
.Second, setting up public-private hybrids consisted of key stakeholders;
.Third, building capacities by making full use of public and private resources;
.Fourth, internalizing by disseminating know-how into a new spiral of evolution.
2. Three Fundamental Changes
Through microscopic observation of how GLOCAL actors fulfil their climate
governance responsibilities, we could find three fundamental changes of global
public goods providing paradigm.
(1) Peer Production: Change in Methods
In the past, facing with global governance difficulties, international organizations
(IOs) promote nation states to comply with international norms, and those which
are congruent with regional norms may be more easily accepted (Acharya, 2004:
239-275). Local heterogeneities make bottom-up trajectories necessary, pushing
the climate governance into a dual-track system with both top-down and
bottom-up procedures.
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Inside the duel-track system, multi-level actors, both public and private, initiate
partnership according to their own demands and supply. Just like users of
Internet, peers with same interests can find each other through network,
composing teams to provide their know-how and expertise, until they solve the
problem. Such project-oriented mass collaboration is better unified for they are
personally willing to be involved in climate governance. They are sure that their
innovative solutions for existent problems may get larger-scale rewards than
expectation, so they are not afraid of free-riders. On the contrary, they regard
free-riders in the early stage of provision as potential peers who will realize the
advantages of their innovative knowledge, and be determined to buy or join the
public goods production process (Tapscott & Williams, 2010).
The concept of “Peer Production” was proposed by Prof. Yochai Benkler in 2002,
which means a mass production paradigm led by individual innovation on ideas
or methods, with collaboration and coordination in projects framework for
potential added value as objectives. Peer Production could be taken as a new
paradigm, for it’s different with hierarchical production led by central
policy-making and market production led by demands of customers. It’s a
open-source paradigm of innovation and collaborative R&D based on relevance
and credibility. Since the principles are like that of Wikipedia, it’s also called
Wikinomics or Open-source Economics (Benkler, 2002: 372). The innovative
inspiration and first-mover advantage of peer production could bring large-scale
benefits and value-adding space, and networked communication will improve
efficiency of global climate governance, lower costs of public governance, so that
more individuals would like to join the public goods provision process.
(2) “Prosumer”: Change in Relations
There is a kind of actors, who themselves are in need of public goods. At the same
19
time, they are constant consumers of public goods. They are called “prosumers”
of public goods (Toffler, 1980: 265-266). With the enlargement of peer
production network and increase of prosumers, there will be a kind of “cloud
effect”, blurring the border between industries and identities of producers and
consumers. In this process, capacity building is the key for consumers to become
qualified prosumers. “Prosumer alliance” with functions of talents nurturing,
norm socialization and incentive mechanisms will be important accelerators for
capacity building. Prosumers are often public entrepreneurs with insights and
activism in different industries. Rewards from being free-ridden may not be
calculated in material, but in terms of “priceless price” (Ackerman & Heinzerling,
2005: 8-9, 164, 177). When the concepts, perceptions and ideas could be put into
practices, the “priceless price” will have its timing to be transformed into priced
commodities (Speth, 2009: 75). We are now in such an era of transformation.
(3) Collaboration: Change in Partnership
It took 16 years for human beings to change the 1st carbon trading of AES Corp
into the carbon market under the Kyoto Protocol (Trexler, Faeth & Kramer, 1989).
The 1st carbon trading project, the 1st CDM project in China, the 1st project
applying VCM Panda Standard were all carried out in TPPP. According to the
global governance literature, public and private actors have been mentioned as
subjects managing their common affairs across borders, in which process
conflicting or diverse interests are accommodated (The Commission on Global
Governance, 1995:4).
More obstacles should be tackled when PPPs are introduced to conquer both
“government failure” and “market failure”, for it’s more complicated and
efforts-taking to find the equilibrium point between government and market. But
that’s what our era is in need of, for human beings are welcoming a sixth
innovation wave focusing on new energies and low-carbon technology in 2024 or
20
so (Moody, Nogrady, 2010). Only those who could successfully coordinate
economic growth with the balance of ecological system can achieve better
governance.
PPP perspective takes international relations (IR) scholars out of the good-or-evil
human nature mindset, but to fully understand the incapability of human beings
in conquering global challenges. With such a belief, they find a brand-new world
of various vacancies of capacity building, some being limitations of actors
themselves, some being loopholes of current policy systems in need of
clarification or amendment. Climate governance will be more successful by
mutual capacity building of public and private actors, in order to tackle
uncertainties (Schäferhoff, Campe & Kaan, 2009: 463).
From this perspective, significance of IR research on global governance would be
to find out the capacity building potentials and contribute wisdoms in removing
obstacles in the way. The world is not an arena of wars and conflicts with
indifferent or angry actors struggling in the anarchic international system, but of
passive actors who expect a better world without knowing how.
PPP scholars believe they have inborn “innovative” capabilities, which is an
important force promoting the real development of the world. In most cases,
developing countries need more capacity building efforts made (Ruggie, 2003:
310), but that does not mean developed countries don’t need any.
21
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