Low-Carbon Policy Experimentation in Chinese Cities: Local Leadership and Implementation Strategies

Weila Gong Bavaria School of Public Policy Technical University of Munich

Paper prepared for the ISA 2021 Annual Convention, April 2021. Please do not cite without the author’s permission.

Abstract Local engagement in low-carbon energy transitions is central to the success of ’s 2060 carbon neutrality pledge. Previous research on subnational climate experimentation focuses on identifying the dynamics and patterns of climate policy experimentation, but less is known about how urban low-carbon policy experiments have been implemented. This study draws on 42 in- depth interviews and comparative case studies to examine why some Chinese cities have been more successful than others at implementing low-carbon policy experiments. It compares and Xiamen – two environmentally friendly and economically advanced cities that took divergent approaches to low-carbon policy experimentation. My findings highlight the importance of local government leadership and the capacity to mobilize resources as key determinants of success.

Keywords: cities, subnational climate governance, policy experimentation, leadership, policy implementation, climate change, China

1. INTRODUCTION Local climate policy implementation is central to the success of China’s low-carbon energy transitions (Qi et al., 2008; Song., 2020; Schreurs, 2008). China’s policy experimentation process has been described as a mass campaign-style resource mobilization with local government officials as the target and objects of state mobilization (Perry, 2011). The National Low-Carbon City Pilot Program, a government-driven policy experimentation mechanism, encourages subnational government to explore policy instruments and governing styles to decarbonize from the bottom up (Heilmann, 2018; Song t al., 2020). As of 2021, 82 Chinese cities have engaged in the national pilot program, but they have demonstrated different levels of responsiveness to climate policy experiments (National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation (NCSC), 2017). Although scholarly research has noted the importance of government leadership in climate experimentation (Tie et al., 2020; Hoffmann, 2011), relatively little is known about the implementation strategies and politics of the local low-carbon policy process. This paper aims to fill this gap by examining low-carbon policy experimentation and implementation in Chinese cities, and the implications for the country’s 2060 neutrality pledge. My approach departs from previous research by shifting the focus from top political leaders to local leaders’ ability to mobilize the necessary resources to implement low-carbon policies. Prior studies that assess the impact of top political leaders’ characteristics, such as their motivations and backgrounds, on government responses in policy experiments (Bulman, 2016; Tie et al., 2020). I instead focus on leading local officials and their implementation strategies. I argue that local government leadership has served as a catalyst for local engagement in low-carbon policy experiments that help institutionalize decarbonization. I evaluate the level of local policy engagement in low-carbon policy experimentation in terms of the level of policy institutionalization. This engagement entails continuity in experimental program development, and ideally, institutions, standards, regulations, and legal acts that can facilitate decarbonization (Jacob et al., 2005). I draw on comparative case studies and in-depth interviews to argue that the level of local engagement in low-carbon policy experimentation is determined by the strength of local government leadership – particularly their resources mobilization abilities. Leaders who can build a broad implementation alliance to overcome the widespread political apathy towards low-carbon

issues are likely to have a higher level of engagement in low-carbon policy experiments. Likewise, implementation is likely to be more advanced where leaders have created a group of trained personnel to draft and implement action plans. Thus even within the constraints on political and economic authority in a centralized political system like China’s, local governments can mobilize the necessary resources for climate policy experimentation. The paper proceeds as follows. Section 2 outlines the study’s research design and methodology. Section 3 reviews China’s subnational climate policy engagement and government- led policy initiatives related to decarbonization. Section 4 introduces my analytical framework – local government leadership. Section 5 compares the two case studies, illustrating the different policy implementation approaches taken by Shenzhen and Xiamen. Section 6 concludes by analyzing the role of local government leadership and implementation strategies in low-carbon policy experimentation and discussing the study’s implications.

2. Methodology My research design controlled initial characteristics such as economic and development status to examine the conditions under which some local areas have a higher level of engagement than others in climate policy experimentation. Shenzhen and Xiamen were selected as the case areas because they had similar levels of economic development, environmental protection, and energy efficiency but took divergent approaches to low-carbon policy experimentation. I use a most- similar comparative case design (George and Bennett, 2004) to compare their low-carbon policy engagement. Shenzhen introduced a wide range of experimental projects in its International Low- Carbon City Program and created the country’s first regional carbon emission exchange. Yet Xiamen has taken a rather cautious approach, with few experimental programs and a lack of cross- divisional coordination in policy implementation. Xiamen has made much less progress in low- carbon policy institutionalization than Shenzhen. It is admittedly tricky to conduct a perfectly controlled comparison given the complexity of such processes (George and Bennett, 2004). To improve the internal validity of this comparison, I use process tracing to identify the key changes in low-carbon policy experiments between 2010 and 2018 and the impact of local leaders’ turnover in low-carbon policy progress in both cities. I collected original data consisting of 42 in-depth interviews and unpublished government

documents from the case cities to reconstruct the local policy process. Most of the interviewees were local officials from the Development and Reform Bureaus and Construction Bureaus as well as experts from the industrial sector and think tanks in both case regions and , who were involved in developing the local low-carbon policy programs. In an environment like the Chinese government, where interviewees are hard to access, personal connections and referrals from important actors from Beijing help reach local officials for interviews (Bleich and Pekkanen, 2013). To prevent bias from the snowball recruiting technique, I also interviewed professionals from a wide range of backgrounds, who have been researching or assisting local low-carbon city programs (Bleich and Pekkanen, 2013). My interview sample includes six active or former government officials, four academics, eight think tank researchers, four representatives from non-governmental organizations and the media, and four enterprise representatives. The semi-structured interviews asked common questions about who did what, when, and how to orchestrate the implementation process, the key challenges in the experimentation progress, what measures have been taken, and how to address the implementation challenges. Most interviews were conducted face to face and lasted 40 minutes to two hours. Personal conversations were held with key informants who have participated in or closely observed local low-carbon policy processes but are less accessible for formal interviews due to their position or time constraints. These personal conversations were conducted in less formal settings such as after conference conversations, but offered unique case-specific information about the key factors driving local responses to climate experiments. I conducted serial interviews (Read, 2018) with eight key informants who were interviewed twice (in 2013 and 2018). I use these interviews to examine the study’s key concept and variables – leadership and implementation strategies (Gallagher, 2013). I also triangulate original data collected from field research with published data sources included government documents, newspaper reports, and statistical yearbooks (Gallagher, 2013).

3. Local Leadership and Low-carbon Policy Experimentation Low-carbon policy experiments are conducted in an environment characterized by uncertainty (Hoffmann, 2011). A lack of financial resources and trained personnel has constrained the experimental programs’ development (Hughes, 2019). Recognizing the need to bridge the

traditional and experimental governing systems, Hoffmann (2011) calls for the climate governance leadership to integrate low-carbon policies into the existing policy system. This paper explores the role of local government leadership in low-carbon policy experimentation in Chinese cities, and considers the implementation strategies used in the experimentation process. Prior studies have documented the importance of subnational leadership in climate initiatives. For instance, Barry Rabe (2004) explores how US policy entrepreneurs pushed climate action plans onto local policy agendas by providing effective policy framing and forming action coalitions. Yet previous research on Chinese low-carbon city pilots emphasizes the importance of top political leaders (Lo, Li, and Chen, 2020; Tie et al., 2020), but ignores the structure of local leadership and implementation strategies. The complex policy dynamics and forces involved in decarbonization make it virtually impossible to trace the causal impact of low-carbon experiments (Hoffmann, 2011; Sabel and Zeitlin, 2011). Since these experiments often operate independently of the traditional governing system, conventional evaluation standards cannot measure their outcome (Hoffmann, 2011). Scholars have attempted to extrapolate low-carbon policy performance from action plans and index evaluation, but there is no scholarly consensus on a low-carbon city development assessment mechanism (Yu et al., 2019; Yang, Wang, and Zou, 2018; Shi et al., 2018, Khanna et al., 2014; Pan et al., 2013; W. Huang et al., 2016, 6). I evaluate the performance of low-carbon policy experiments from a “process-oriented” (Heilmann, 2018) by considering the extent to which they institutionalize low-carbon policy in terms of regulations, standards, and legislation. Study on Chinese local election experiments suggests that local policy experiment lacks not policy innovations, but institutionalization (Fewsmith, 2013). Jacob et al. (2005)’s work on environmental policy innovations suggest the importance of policy institutionalization in the capacity-building of environmental governance. They argue that governments should create low- carbon standards, regulations, and legislation, and integrate them into the policies of different government branches. Change of institutional arrangement reflects the power struggles behind local experimentation process (Fewsmith, 2013, 39). This paper attempts to fill the research gap on the implementation strategies that local governments utilized to facilitate low-carbon policy institutionalization. Prior studies have employed three main arguments to explicate local environmental behavior

and/or local government-led policy initiatives in China, but each fails to adequately explain local engagement in low-carbon policy experimentation. First, the environmental Kuznets curve approach predicts that economically advanced areas are more likely to support the strengthening of environmental regulations due to greater citizen demand for quality living (Grossman and Krueger, 1994; Rawski, 2009). However, in China, the central governments – not civil society – lead the decarbonization efforts (Lo, Li, and Chen, 2020). While the national government has been increasingly responsive to environmental challenges, local governments have traditionally resisted (and lacked the capacity to implement) decarbonization (China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCIECD), 2019; Qi et al., 2008; Ran, 2013). Thus, the Kuznets curve approach cannot explain why two comparable affluent and environment- friendly Chinese cities took starkly divergent approaches to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Second, the clientelist approach emphasizes the influence of central–local political patronage in local responses to policy experimentation. It maintains that local leaders have been reluctant to carry out policy experiments due to concerns about the potential political risks of failed policy experiments (Heilmann, 2018). Local leaders who can secure political coverage through patronage with top political leaders in Beijing are more likely to engage in policy experiments (Chung, 2000; Bulman, 2016; Jaros, 2019). But the clientelist approach cannot fully explain local engagement in non-economic policy experiments in fields like welfare and environmental issues. Such engagement has instead been driven by bureaucratic-level action alliances (Huang and Zhou, 2019; Personal Conversation, 261900, 2018). In addition, local governments voluntarily engaged in low- carbon policy experiments, which had few political risks, and local officials are rarely punished for failure in such experiments (Huang and Zhou, 2019; Interview 171019, 2018). Third, the political tournament approach emphasizes that in China’s upward accountability system, the bureaucratic evaluation system places local leaders in competition with their peers throughout the region to achieve policy goals set by the central government (Zhou, 2008). This approach cannot explain local responses to low-carbon policy experimentation, because climate policies are not considered in this political tournament system (Tie et al., 2020). This paper focuses on comparing the largely overlooked low-carbon decision-making process (Luque-Ayala, Marvin, and Bulkeley, 2018) in Chinese cities, and offers a concrete explanation of the role of government leadership in shaping local approaches to climate policy experimentation.

4. A New Approach: Local Government Leadership and Resource Mobilization Economic status and bureaucratic incentives are essential but insufficient to explain China’s low- carbon policy experimentation. They do not describe why two economically advanced and environmentally friendly cities took such different approaches to decarbonization. Local officials should be expected to engage in low-carbon policy experiments only to the extent that doing so does not jeopardize their chances of promotion. This paper examines how local leaders make strategic connections with key actors inside and outside of local government to expand their base of support for low-carbon policy experiments. It also explores how local governments address implementation challenges, especially when political and economic resources are limited. Finally, the paper details how the implementation strategies that local leaders have developed to mobilize resources are crucial for local engagement in climate policy experimentation. I focus on the merger of leadership and resource mobilization in the policy implementation process, which generates an implementation mechanism I call local government leadership. I define this mechanism as a local government’s ability to mobilize the implementing resources required to achieve the desired policy goals – in this case, low-carbon experimentation (see Figure 1). My use of the term leadership focuses on the agent and structural interaction of political leadership (Morris and Staggenborg, 2007; Jones, 1989).

Figure 1: The Structure of Local Government Leadership

Source: Adapted from Gong, 2019.

Two elements are central to the operation of local government leadership: leadership team and implementation strategies. The leadership team consists of top political leaders (Party Secretary and Mayor) and bridge executive leaders (vice Mayor or divisional heads). Top leaders have complete control over local decision-making, from agenda setting and policy interpretation to vetoing local cadre appointments (Bulman, 2016, 115; Eaton and Kostka, 2013). Their endorsement is thus key to overcoming the political apathy towards the low-carbon issue within the bureaucracy (Tang, Hu, and Hang, 2016). Since most top leaders rotate between areas every 3–5 years, they rely on bridging executive leaders for policy implementation (Ang, 2018; Gordon and Johnson, 2017). Bridging leaders often spend their entire careers in one locality and thus have an in-depth understanding of who can orchestrate the implementation process by connecting key actors to access the implementing resources and facilities collaboration. Two implementation strategies are crucial to local leadership in policy experiments: (1) creating implementation alliances and (2) creating a group of trained personnel with the necessary skills and experience. First, the leadership team’s success depends not only on the key leaders’ vision, but on how they build alliances with key organizations and individuals to push new issue areas onto the policy agenda (Jones, 1989; Vogel, 2018; Zhu and Xiao, 2014; Jänicke, 2012). Local Chinese leaders can build action alliances with government-affiliated agents with complementary expertise, resources, and administrative authority to overcome common implementation challenges associated with the fragmented government system. This co-opting approach has been shown to be useful in organizing multi-agency coordination to promote local low-carbon policy initiatives (Gilley, 2017; Mertha, 2014). A second important implementation strategy is to recruit a coalition of trained personnel including bureaucrats, academics, researchers, and business actors inside and outside of the government who have specialized low-carbon knowledge through their professional expertise or active involvement in decarbonization-related activities. The early involvement of trained non- governmental actors in studying local low-carbon action plans was critical for some local areas to cultivate a policy community and convince the national government to award them low-carbon pilot status (Lo, Li, and Chen, 2020; Shin, 2017; Mai and Francesch-Huidobro, 2014). These specialists determine the level of bureaucratic capacity to implement the proposed action (Jahiel, 2009) and the potential emergence of policy entrepreneurship (Kingdon, 1995).

5. Shenzhen and Xiamen Comparison GDP per capita in both Shenzhen (US$ 28,592) and Xiamen (US$ 20,355) was much higher than the national average (US$9,977) in 2018 (Table 1) (Shenzhen Statistics Bureau, 2019; Xiamen Statistics Bureau, 2019). Both cities have advanced industrial structures, with nearly 60% of their GDP coming from the tertiary industry. Since 2010, both cities have engaged in a National Low- carbon City Pilot Program and used low-carbon development to transform local growth patterns and adopt carbon intensity reduction goals by 2015 and 2020. Both cities have led efforts to promote environmental regulations. Xiamen ranked fourth in air quality of the 168 main Chinese cities, while Shenzhen ranked ninth (Ministry of Ecology and Environment 2019, 10-11). Since its first legislation on sound pollution in 1993, Shenzhen has built an environmental regulatory system that covers issues including city planning, ecological protection, and sustainable development. Since the first Xiamen Environmental Protection Ordinance in 1994, the city has extended its environmental legislation to specific areas such as water resource management and energy conservation. Given their seemingly similar strong commitments to environmental protection, we would expect both local governments to allocate considerable political and economic resources to initiate low-carbon policy activities. Yet only Shenzhen did. In assessing the relative attainment of low-carbon policy institutionalization it appears that Shenzhen was able to mobilize far greater capacities for low-carbon experimentations than Xiamen (Table 2).

Table 1. Low-Carbon Goals in Shenzhen and Xiamen

Shenzhen Xiamen Low-Carbon Goals Energy Consumption per Unit of GDP 0.366 by 2020 Over 45% below 2005 levels by 2020 Characteristics Industrial Structure (2018) 0.1: 41.1: 58.8 0.4:41.6:58.0 GDP per capita (2018) US$ 28,592* US$ 20,355 Size 792 m3 657 m3 Numbers of trained personnel 4 1 in the bureaucracy (2016) *

Sources. Shenzhen Statistical Yearbook, 2019; Shenzhen Low-Carbon Development Medium-to-Long Term Plan

2010–2020; Xiamen Statistics Bureau, 2019; Xiamen Low-Carbon Pilot Work Plan 2011. * Author’s calculation and field notes.

Table 2. Implementation of Low-Carbon City Policy Experiments (2010-2018), Shenzhen vs. Xiamen

Institutions with Local Leadership Action Alliance Policy Engagement* Trained Personnel 1. Shenzhen International Low- Carbon City Program 2. Regulations on Shenzhen Legislator, Business 1. Universities Special Economic Zone Carbon Sector, National 2. Think Tanks Emission Trading Mayor and Vice Government, 3. Shenzhen Carbon 3. Green Building Ordinance Shenzhen Mayor Township Exchange 5. Medium-Long Term Low- (2010-2016) Government, 4. Shenzhen Building Carbon Development Plan Bureaucratic Research Institute 6. Low-Carbon City Agencies Development Plan 7. Shenzhen Green Finance Act 8. Climate Change Division 1. Low-Carbon City Development Plan Mayor and 2. Green Building Ordinance 1. Universities Xiamen Divisional Head None 3. Carbon Emission Monitoring 2. Think Tanks (2010) Project 4. Kick-off of the Carbon Neutrality Project Source: Field notes from author. * Updated to reflect recent policy developments through 2020.

The Shenzhen Municipal People’s Congress in 2013 passed the Regulations on Shenzhen Special Economic Zone Carbon Emission Trading (Shenzhen ETS), which gave the city’s government the authority to set targets and plans for local emissions trading. As of 2014, the total amount emitted by all 636 registered entities was 279.9 million tons, which represents a 12.6% reduction from 2010 (NCSC, 2017, 146). From 2013 to 2017, the emission-controlling manufacturing enterprises decreased by an average of 34.8% (from 0.43 tons per 10,000 RMB in 2013 to 0.29 tons per 10,000 RMB in 2017) of their carbon intensity, which was about 10% higher than the average level of manufacturing enterprises’ carbon intensity reduction in Shenzhen (Harbin Institute of Technology et al., 2019). Shenzhen ETS also brought together a group of 40– 50 trained personnel working full time on decarbonization (Interview 240107, 2018).

In its Low-Carbon City Pilot Work Plan, Xiamen municipal government set two targets: (1) reduce energy intensity by 10% by 2015 compared to 2010 levels and (2) reduce carbon intensity by over 45% between 2005 and 2020. While Xiamen achieved its carbon intensity reduction targets, a 16.5% energy efficiency reduction between 2011 and 2015, its economy is still overwhelmingly powered by fossil fuels (Pan and Zhuang, 2018, 98-100). The huge energy demand from a fleet of carbon-intensive industries, which has been significant to local GDP, has been met by imported electricity powered by fossil fuels. The share of electricity imports in Xiamen’s energy structure increased nearly 15%, from 21.33% in 2010 to 36.02% in 2015, while the share of natural gas decreased from 8.45% to 6.74% during this period (Pan and Zhuang, 2018, 98-100). Why has Shenzhen demonstrated a higher level of engagement in low-carbon policy experimentation than Xiamen? The difference does not appear to be attributable to differences in international exposure. Both cities worked with international agencies to develop low-carbon- related activities. But as interviews with policy practitioners in Shenzhen and Xiamen and experts from international agencies show, low-carbon policy experiments in both cities were initiated by local governments in response to central climate policy appeals. International experts were consulted at the early stage of conceptualization such as the eco-city project in Shenzhen and green building in Xiamen, but were not involved in drafting master plans or implementing low-carbon city projects (Interview 102000, 2018; Personal Conversation 130410, 2020; Xiamen Evening News, 2009). I propose that the local government leaderships’ different abilities to mobilize the required implementing resources explains this difference. Shenzhen’s local leaders were more capable of creating action alliances and a coalition of trained personnel for low-carbon policy experiment. By contrast, the disengaged Xiamen leadership prioritized economic development over decarbonization (Interview 102520, 2018), and therefore failed to mobilize the action alliance and local expertise needed for climate policy implementation. Recent research also shows that implementation challenges resulting from insufficient cross-divisional policy coordination and a carbon-intensive energy structure made Xiamen a low-carbon city pilot in name only (Song et al., 2020; Pan and Zhuang, 2018).

5.1 The Case of Shenzhen

Shenzhen demonstrated its capacity to build extended action alliances and create a division of trained personnel to implement its low-carbon policy experiments, despite a lack of institutionalized central policy incentives and evaluation. The local government co-opted a government-affiliated investment enterprise to mobilize the capital needed to construct the Shenzhen International Low-Carbon City after it failed to attract international investments and funding (Wang et al., 2012; Development and Reform Commission of Shenzhen Municipality (Shenzhen DRC), 2013). A group of trained personnel from government agencies, business sectors, and research institutes was engaged in researching and drafting the proposed action plans, as well as managing and operating the low-carbon city programs. Shenzhen reached its 2020 energy intensity target ahead of schedule, and devised low-carbon target-setting and funding schemes to coordinate carbon emission reduction activities in the industrial, transportation, and building sectors. In 2017, the city’s coal consumption as a proportion of total energy consumption was 6.4% below the 2013 level (from 46.5% in 2013 to 39.1% in 2017) (Harbin Institute of Technology et al., 2019). In 2020, it became the first Chinese city to push green finance regulations through its Local People’s Congress to further institutionalize low- carbon measures into its financial and investment sector (Shenzhen People’s Congress, 2020).

5.1.1. Local Government Leadership Since low-carbon issues have not yet been institutionalized into China’s policy system, local leadership must intervene to secure scarce political and economic resources (Gilley, 2017). Shenzhen’s approach to low-carbon policy experimentation reflects the strength of its local government leadership and the importance of building an implementation coalition. During the 2009 global economic crisis, then-Mayor Xu Zongheng called for the city’s economic transformation from resource-intensive industries to high-tech and service industries. As Shenzhen tightened its environmental regulations, many small and medium sized, and labor-, energy-, and resource- intensive enterprises left the city, resulting a rapid increase of 41% low-carbon industries and a 25% decrease between 2008 and 2016 (Shenzhen Statistics Bureau, 2017, 10; Remin Daily, 2018). After it was selected as a low-carbon city pilot in 2010, Shenzhen established the Leading Group for Addressing Climate Change and Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction. Mayor

Xu Qin was the chair, and Vice Mayor Tang Jie was the executive leader tasked with coordinating low-carbon policy experimentation. The city soon launched the first regional carbon emissions exchange and integrated the Shenzhen International Low-Carbon City Program into the EU–China Climate Change Framework, with the help of the central National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). The NDRC promoted such connections to showcase China’s success in low-carbon technology and international cooperation (Shenzhen DRC, 2011a). Exposure to advanced technology and expertise in carbon emission reductions from other countries helped Shenzhen train local experts to work on its emissions trading system (Shenzhen Carbon Trading Study Tour, 2013). Yet, the local government leadership also had to mobilize the implementing resources to implement a wide range of low-carbon experimental programs that require vast political, economic, and human investment. Key urban renewal and environment projects – such as the construction of an exhibition center and roads, house renovation, and water quality improvement – cost an estimated 500 million RMB (US$ 81million) (Shenzhen DRC, 2013).

5.1.2 Resources Mobilization A critical aspect of mobilizing the necessary implementing resources has been creating a low- carbon action alliance, which secured a wide support base and mobilized crucial financial resources. Xu Qin and Tang Jie actively reached out to key actors for policy consultation and coordination, which signaled their political endorsement of low-carbon projects to different branches of government agencies and industrial and business sectors. For instance, Tang held regular meetings with trained personnel from research institutes, government agencies, and business actors to address the technical, public, and business concerns of the policy implementation process (Interview 240107, 2013; Interview 010712, 2013). Shenzhen emerged as a leader in climate experimentation in China. The city’s municipal government worked with a dozen local research institutes on the Low- Carbon City Master Plan, and developed low-carbon standards for land use, building, industrial structure, and transportation into the low-carbon city construction (General Office of Shenzhen Municipal Government (GOSG), 2012a, 2012b). While no institutionalized national subsidies were available for the low-carbon city pilot projects, the Shenzhen government allocated nearly

half of its national awards for the city’s energy conservation performance, which amounted to 220 million RMB (US$36 million), to the Low-Carbon City Project (GOSG, 2013). Xu and Tang also organized a government meeting to coordinate the implementation of Shenzhen Low-Carbon City construction. In this meeting, the local leadership agreed to sell the initial construction area to a local government-owned investment company (the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone Construction Development Group) to help the township government raise the capital to pay for the associated housing demolition and relocation compensation (GOSG, 2012b). These policy orchestrations were important steps in providing Shenzhen’s low-carbon pilot city programs with feasible solutions and sufficient resources. Obstacles remain, however, to the city’s low-carbon policy experimentation. These include the potential for the inadequate enforcement of low-carbon standards after the township government gained control of the land management and investment decision-making power, given its prioritization of economic gain over decarbonization (Shenzhen Municipal Government, 2017).

5.2 The Case of Xiamen Xiamen exhibited a much lower level of policy engagement than Shenzhen in low-carbon policy experiments, which led to a gap in institutionalizing low-carbon policy. I propose that the lack of policy engagement is due to a lack of resource mobilization by the disengaged local government leadership. Xiamen’s government established the Leading Group for Low-carbon Pilot Work in 2011, but delegated policy implementation to administrators who did not have the authority to mobilize resources or coordinate cross-divisional actions (Interview 191704, 2018). The building of low-carbon policy institutionalization was hampered by the lack of local leadership in building action alliances to overcome political apathy for low-carbon issues in the bureaucracy. Xiamen has a reputation as an environmentally friendly city. It was one of the first Chinese cities to legitimize the construction of ecological civilization. It has led the green building development in Province, and has invested a high level of energy and financial resources in environmental protection (Pan and Zhang, 2018, 28-59). The city’s Municipal Government has the authority to strengthen environmental standards in a number of issue areas such as urban planning, land use management, and green building development. Yet for many years, the local

government leadership has prioritized the city’s economic standing relative to other affluent Chinese cities over decarbonization (Interview 030223, 2018).

5.2.1. Disengaged Local Leadership The development of an environmental regulatory system and improvements in energy efficiency helped Xiamen stayed at the forefront of low-carbon research when it joined the national low-carbon city pilot program in 2010. The Xiamen Construction and Administration Bureau was known for its leading green building standards and energy efficiency initiatives within Fujian Province. The Mayor proposed that the bureau take the lead in preparing Xiamen’s low-carbon pilot city application. The bureau’s deputy director created a research team of five engineers within the agency and drafted Xiamen’s Low-Carbon City Overall Plan Outline, which explicated the need to decouple local development from increased carbon emissions and proposed a set of 31 low-carbon indicators for Xiamen’s Jimei low-carbon city construction (Lin and Cao, 2010; Interview 120803, 2018). Yet the government backlash in Xiamen around the time the new municipal government leadership took office in 2013 sidelined the implementation of the low- carbon city construction plan (Interview 030223, 2013; Interview 191704, 2018). Thus, although Xiamen has demonstrated perhaps one of the most comprehensive environmental policy systems among Chinese cities, and continues to lead the country’s cities in air quality and environmental protection performance, it has been lacking progress in low-carbon policy experiments, and joined the low-carbon policy experimentation with an uneven policy engagement record. The Xiamen Municipal Government lost interest in the low-carbon city policy experiments after a change in local government leadership between 2011 and 2013 resulted in a divestment of political and financial resources from low-carbon policy experiments. As a source from a think tank in Xiamen noted, after the initial interest in low-carbon issues, local government leaders found that these issues constrained local economic growth and did not help them advance politically (Interview 102512x, 2018). The newly appointed Party Secretary Wang Menghui in 2013 pushed aside low-carbon experiments to promote a new development strategy, “Beautiful Xiamen,” which branded it a “Bay Regional City” to attract capital and investment (Interview 030223, 2013). The city government set up a Leading Group on Beautiful Xiamen to mobilize government and societal participation in attracting investments and sponsoring construction to help the city

catch up economically (Xiamen Daily, 2014). While some infrastructure projects, such as the construction of an underground railway, can be low carbon in nature, Xiamen’s rapid urban sprawl has been criticized as endangering the local ecological system and has the potential to increase carbon emissions due to traffic jams and extending commuting distances (Pan and Zhuang, 2018, 32). To expand Xiamen’s economic hinterland and connections to neighboring cities, the Xiamen Municipal Government invested a total of over 60 billion RMB (US$ 9.2 billion) in urban infrastructure construction, compared to only 1.6 million RMB (US$ 240,000) in 2015 on low- carbon-related research and projects (Pan and Zhuang, 2018; Xiamen City Planning Academy, 2015).

5.2.2. Lack of Low-Carbon Action Alliances At the bureaucratic level, the lack of low-carbon action alliances and political apathy about low-carbon issues caused Xiamen to trail behind Shenzhen in low-carbon policy implementation. In contrast to Shenzhen’s government leadership, which kept in frequent contact with the NDRC for resources and policy guidance during the policy experimentation, Xiamen has been lax about updating the national government on its policy progress. Sources from Beijing mentioned that Xiamen kept changing officials in charge of coordinating low-carbon policy experiments (Personal Conversation 122512, 2013). Although in the beginning Xiamen’s Construction and Administration Bureau pioneered researching local pathways for decarbonization and proposed detailed urban planning indicators (rather than using general guiding targets, as many cities did, for the low-carbon city construction), Xiamen’s leadership began to slip. Apathy on low-carbon issues caused the bureaucracy to derail Xiamen from further engagement in low-carbon policy experiments. The Jimei township government and real estate developers were against the enforcement of low-carbon standards due to concerns that it would lead to economic losses (Interview 101708, 2018). The Development and Reform Bureau, which took over the low-carbon pilot city tasks from the Construction and Administration Bureau in 2010, basically shelved the low-carbon city project since no divisional heads showed an interest in decarbonization. All the city’s low-carbon tasks were assigned to a loaned administrator working on multiple projects (Interview 191704, 2018).

The lack of local government leadership on low-carbon policy orchestration led to insufficient cross-divisional collaboration and implementing resources in policy implementation. Although Xiamen has advanced environmental protection performance in China, this city has been lagging behind in building the basics of low-carbon implementation capacity such as a rigorous carbon inventory, local advisory expertise, and a group of trained administrative personnel (Pan and Zhuang, 2018, 68). For the carbon inventory, relevant sectoral energy and emissions data have to draw from various bureaucratic agencies without willingness to share and collaborate with each other. A source engaged in preparing Xiamen’s carbon inventory mentioned that except the available electricity and statistical data, he had to contact a dozen of bureaucratic agencies one by one to access detailed sectoral data (Interview 102512x, 2018). Ironically, he found that obtaining data from the Construction and Administration Bureau was the most challenging, because it only agrees to qualitative materials referred to Xiamen’s building energy efficiency development but not quantitative project data (Interview 102512x, 2018). Even though several tank tanks and universities in Xiamen have the expertise to advise other cities on low-carbon development or conduct relevant academic research, the local expertise has not utilized in Xiamen’s low-carbon policy experiments. While Shenzhen reliant on its local expertise in developing low-carbon city masterplan, Xiamen, instead, reached out experts in Beijing from the Chinese Academy of Social Science to evaluate Xiamen’s decarbonization efforts. Throughout Xiamen’s low-carbon policy experimentation in 2010s, insufficient implementation capacity ensued even after Party Secretary Wang left office. As the Development and Reform Bureau kept using temporary administrators to deal with low-carbon issues (four different individuals between 2010 and 2018), Xiamen has not built a group of trained administrative personnel within its bureaucracy. A single administrator even organized the kick-off of the Carbon Neutral Project for Xiamen’s high-profile conference – undertaking all the coordination, including reaching out to the central government and connecting with local partners – that President Xi Jinping presented in 2017 (Interview 191704, 2018). The central government complained in 2013 that it had almost lost track of Xiamen’s low-carbon policy progress due to the city’s lack of local government leadership and its frequent replacement of the contact administrator (Personal Conversation 081725, 2013); this has prevented Xiamen from accessing central government resources and policy guidance that Shenzhen found useful.

Sensing the political pressure from higher levels of government to reduce carbon emissions through tightened cadre evaluation performance, Xiamen also started to present itself to higher levels of government as being more low-carbon aware in the late 2010s. For example, Xiamen municipal government incentives led local officials to incorporate low-carbon indicators into cadres’ performance evaluation system (Pan and Zhuang, 2018). The local government funded recent low-carbon research and projects, for instance on low-carbon communities and decarbonization pathways in Xiamen, and a carbon emissions monitoring platform project. While those projects helped Xiamen build local low-carbon expertise and expand industrial participation, for example by providing training on the carbon emissions monitoring platform, the disengaged local government leadership prevented the formation of a grand local action alliance, as occurred in Shenzhen. Xiamen’s low-carbon policy system development has also lagged behind other major Chinese cities such as Beijing and (Pan and Zhuang, 2018, 67-68). In 2020, almost ten years after it issued its Low-Carbon City Pilot Work Action Plan, Xiamen achieved its carbon intensity reduction goals but has made little progress towards fulfilling its institutional pledges such as building a low-carbon regulatory and legislative system (Xiamen Development and Reform Bureau, 2011).

6. Discussion and Conclusion This article argues that local government leadership, particularly its resource mobilization capacity, conditions local engagement in low-carbon policy experimentation. Economically advanced regions are generally more likely to strengthen local environmental regulations and to invest more in environmental protection than less advanced areas. Yet this observation cannot explain why Shenzhen and Xiamen took diverging approaches to low-carbon policy experimentation, a policy field that is vulnerable to political apathy and has not yet institutionalized into the governing system. Shenzhen demonstrated a higher level of engagement in (and institutionalization of) climate policy experimentation. For instance, it created low-carbon institutions such as the Shenzhen Carbon Exchange and the Climate Change Division under its Ecology and Environment Bureau, legislation on local emissions trading and green finance, and incorporated its low-carbon city project into China–EU bilateral climate change cooperation. After a leadership change, Xiamen

shifted its attention from low-carbon policy experiments to the “Beautiful Xiamen” project, which prioritized economic development. The city has struggled to build its low-carbon implementation capacity, continues to fuel its economy with imported carbon-intensive energy sources, and failed to enforce low-carbon standards as planned for the Jimei low-carbon city program. In Shenzhen, the municipal government’s mobilization of resources gave its program the political attention, land resources, capital, and expertise needed to implement its low-carbon city policy programs. By contrast, Xiamen’s disengaged local government leadership prevented its policy program from fostering a cross-divisional alliance to overcome political apathy in the bureaucracy, which left its low-carbon project implementation vulnerable to opposition from lower levels of government and business interests. These findings suggest that the co-benefits assumption underlying much social–technical transitions research on low-carbon policy experimentation does not hold up to scrutiny of the actual policy implementation process. As this research shows, local implementation capacity in environmental protection and energy efficiency improvement can be an advantage for local climate experimentation. Yet, synergizing environmental and low-carbon actions itself requires political capital. As Hoffmann (2011) argues, leadership is needed to foster the emerging division of labor on low-carbon issues. Although the government has created general environmental protection agencies, few local regions have established bureaucratic agencies dedicated to climate change (CCIECD, 2019; Interview 081725, 2018; Interview 240323, 2018). Thus local governments do not have the full-time staff they need to implement climate policies (Interview 240323, 2018; Personal Conversation, 261900, 2018). Shenzhen’s government leadership successfully worked with a group of specialists (from government-affiliated agencies, universities, and think tanks) to break down its Shenzhen Low- Carbon City Program into manageable tasks. Yet Xiamen did not have access to such a group; its disengaged leadership sidelined low-carbon issues and did not allocate sufficient political, financial, and human resources. In new, technically complex issue areas with high levels of bureaucratic apathy like climate change, local leaders must create a division of labor and action alliances to integrate the tested policy innovations into different branches of local government (Hoffmann, 2011; Baumgartner and Jones, 2nd ed., 2009).

Local leadership’s capacity to build implementation alliances is crucial for mobilizing the resources necessary for policy experimentation. Although bureaucratic structures influence the distribution of political and economic resources within a bureaucracy (Lieberthal and Oksenburg, 1988), the implementing resources available for the policy experiments are not predetermined. While the involvement of top political leaders is important to local engagement in low-carbon activities (Tie et al., 2020), building coalitions with key actors like competent bureaucratic agencies, legislators, business actors, and different levels of government is central to creating low- carbon action alliances (Hughes, Yordi, and Besco, 2018). As the case studies examined here show, Shenzhen’s low-carbon action alliances consisted of competent bureaucratic agencies, a government-affiliated investment company, and the township government, which mobilized the huge financial resources required to acquire land and make the urban low-carbon renewal projects possible. In Xiamen, the lack of low-carbon action alliances in the bureaucracy led to implementation challenges ranging from flawed data used in the carbon inventory, the rapid expansion of carbon-intensive urban construction, and a lack of institutional support for decarbonization efforts. In both cases, the insignificant role of the central government’s institutionalized incentives and international cooperation in mobilizing resources is surprising. What makes local government leadership effective is its centralized organizational structure and decision-making process, in which local government-affiliated agencies become the targets and objects of mobilization. Since I only studied two cases, the role of local government leadership in climate policy experimentation can only be generalized to a limited degree. However, local government leadership in climate experimentation has motivated local areas and regions to create various climate initiatives and networks, and these experiments are expanding to cities with a wide range of geographic and economic disparities (e.g. countries in the Global South and North, rural and urban areas). Previous studies have pointed out that the importance of political leadership in climate policy experimentation cannot be overstated (Hughes, 2019; Kern, 2020), and highlighted the need to understand the politics behind low-carbon experimentation (Evans, Karvonen, and Raven, 2016). Climate policy experimentation is not only about testing technology innovations; it is also an opportunity for cities to explore new governance styles (Luwue-Ayala, Marvin, and Bulkeley, 2018). The challenges lie in integrating the novelty from the climate experiments into

the conventional governing system and examining how cities can move beyond the low-hanging fruit of piecemeal policy innovations to deep decarbonization (Hoffmann, 2011; Hughes, 2019). Given the importance of low-carbon policy institutionalization, integrating low-carbon standards into the policies of different branches of government agencies can be an important strategy for deep local decarbonization (Jacob et al., 2005). Future research questions can build on results and discussions presented here. For cities, the success of low-carbon energy transitions requires a division of labor on decarbonization (Hoffmann, 2011). What are the driving forces behind the creation of a division of labor and their respective networks in local areas and regions? If the division of labor emerges, to what extent can it facilitate a more pluralistic decision-making process, especially in China’s centralized political system (Mertha, 2014)? This study has conceptual and policy implications. The two cases suggest the importance of conceptualizing about subnational leadership in climate experimentations, which requires insights into the agent–structure interactions behind the role of political leadership in the low-carbon policy process. Shenzhen’s leadership demonstrated local leaders’ ability to mobilize implementing resources through extensive local government outreach channels. By contrast, Xiamen’s disengaged leadership facilitated the growth of climate apathy in the bureaucracy, which led to bureaucratic gridlock that cut off channels for resource mobilization for low-carbon policy implementation. The two cities’ divergent approaches to decarbonization deepen scholarly understanding of Chinese local leaders’ discretion by showing how local government, under the constraints of political and economic autonomy, mobilized the resources required for low-carbon policy experimentation. The current study contributes to the debate on local responsiveness to central environmental and climate policy appeals in China’s centralized political system, subnational comparative climate politics and urban low-carbon policy experimentation (Rabe, 2004; Hoffmann, 2011; Ding, 2020; Steinberg and VanDeveer, 2012; Hughes, 2018). Synergizing environmental and climate issues within administrative arrangements is not sufficient to achieve China’s goal of carbon neutrality by 2060. Local low-carbon capacity building should be the focus of attention. The central government should offer institutionalized bureaucratic and financial incentives to encourage local officials to prioritize low-carbon issues on local policy agendas. The Department of Climate Change should take the leading role in

collaborating with key bureaucratic agencies at the national level to create a national fund to support local climate capacity-building initiatives and relevant training for local officials, business sectors, and non-governmental organizations. Finally, local climate capacity building will continue to be incremental unless institutionalized efforts are introduced by national and/or local government leadership, to empower low-carbon institutional structures and the division of labor towards decarbonization.

Cited Interviews and Personal Conversations Personal Conversation, 130410, 2020, online. Personal Conversation, 261900, 2018, Zhenjiang. Personal Conversation, 122512, 2013, Duesseldorf. Personal Conversation, 081725, 2013, Duesseldorf. Interview 240107, 2013, Shenzhen. Interview 240107, 2018, Shenzhen. Interview 102512, 2018, Shenzhen. Interview 010712, 2013, Shenzhen. Interview 102000, 2018, Shenzhen. Interview 030223, 2013, Xiamen. Interview 030223, 2018, Xiamen. Interview 120803, 2018, Xiamen. Interview 101708, 2018, Xiamen. Interview 102512x, 2018, Xiamen. Interview 191704, 2018, Xiamen. Interview 171019, 2018, Beijing. Interview 081725, 2018, Beijing. Interview 240323, 2018, Beijing.

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