Research On The Participation Of U.S.Sub-national Actors In Sino-U.S.Climate Governance Cooperation

Governance in climate change has become one of the most concerned issues in the world today due to its long-lasting nature,complexity,and its global impact.As major greenhouse gas emitters,China and the United States play a central role in global climate governance.The U.S.federal government,however,has been in a relatively absent state of governance for a long time,making the role of U.S.sub-national actors in global climate governance increasingly prominent.Thus,the emergence of U.S.sub-national actors in climate governance may open up a new path for U.S.-China climate cooperation.In this paper,I choose multi-level governance theory as the analytical framework to examine the new practices in the field of U.S.-China climate cooperation.Marks,Betsill,and others divided the theory of multi-level governance into two approaches,namely,one describes a limited number of stable levels of non-overlapping jurisdictions at which governance takes place(type I),and the other describes overlapping,functionally specific jurisdictions involving numerous state and non-state actors(type II).Based on this research,Kern then divided the theory of multi-level governance(Embedded Upscaling)into three approaches,namely,horizontal upscaling,vertical upscaling,and hierarchical upscaling.The "embedded upscaling " governance theory better explains the governance practices of EU sub-national actors,but it only focuses on the municipal level of EU sub-national actors,which demonstrates the absence of an overall study of sub-national actors at each level.By summarizing and refining the above theoretical resources,this paper attempts to propose a new analytical framework of multi-level governance theory academically,break through the single research path of “embedded upscaling”governance theory,and systematically examine and explain the roles and functions of state and city as sub-national actors in the cooperation with China on climate governance.By doing so,this paper should be a good attempt in developing a new research orientation in the field of global(climate)governance theory and practice.This paper divides the theory of multi-level governance into three dimensions.First,horizontal dimensional governance refers to the network of sharing knowledge and information,the diffusion of climate policies,technologies,and experiences,and other direct exchanges and cooperation from leading sub-national actors in climate action to sub-national actors in other countries on a voluntary horizontal basis.It is further subdivided into three parts,namely,climate cooperation between U.S.states and Chinese provinces,climate cooperation between cities of U.S.and China,as well as cities of U.S.and China in a transnational network.Second,the vertical dimensional approach to governance refers to the bottom-up role of sub-national actors.Particularly in the absence of national policies,sub-national actors can leapfrog the federal government and engage directly in international climate cooperation.California's climate cooperation with China's central government is selected here.Third,the hierarchical dimensional approach to governance refers to the fact that under the Constitution,the U.S.federal government has the power to make binding laws and regulations and require strict compliance by local governments at all levels,and the power of states and cities is limited.The emphasis of this approach is on a strict top-down model.The hierarchical dimensional governance approach is divided into two main parts,the first being the federal government's aggressive push on lagging states or cities to adopt climate policies and cooperate with China under the federal government's aggressive response to climate change.At the same time,an progressive federal push can help some pioneer states or cities to set more ambitious carbon reduction targets.The second is under the federal government's negative response to climate change,analyzing the ways and reasons of the federal government's negative constraints and the impacts on U.S.sub-national actors.Through these three dimensions,this article provides a comprehensive analysis of the motivations,characteristics,experiences,and current status of sub-national actors such as states and cities(transnational city networks)in the United States in their climate cooperation with China.The article concludes that the roles played by U.S.sub-national actors in climate cooperation with China vary under different dimensions.Under the horizontal dimension,the first model of state-provincial cooperation includes voluntarily agreed state-provincial cooperation and state-provincial cooperation supported by the two governments.The U.S.states play the roles of project facilitator and technology provider,respectively,in the cooperation.The second model of city-to-city cooperation mainly refers to the cooperation between Chinese and American cities in a green partnership supported by the two governments.Through the analysis,it is concluded that the support of the two governments,stable funding sources and clear management plans are the keys to guarantee that the cooperation between Chinese and American cities can be carried out smoothly.The third model of cooperation between cities in a transnational city network elaborates cities could enhance their capacity to address climate change through information sharing,resource technology platforms,and policy development.In the absence of a federal government,U.S.cities play an indirect leadership role in climate cooperation with China.In the vertical dimension,the U.S.state of California can directly engage in climate cooperation with the Chinese government in the absence of the federal government,and California can play a leading and complementary(as for the federal government)role in climate cooperation with China.California is able to play its enabling role because of the importance that the Governor of California places on climate change,the serious impacts that California faces from climate change,the fact that California has a strong climate authority,and the fact that California has leading clean energy policies and technologies.In the hierarchical dimension,the emphasis is on the strict top-down binding force of the federal government,which requires absolute obedience from sub-national actors.The role of this strict hierarchy is divided into positive facilitation and negative constraint according to the differences in the federal government's policy orientation to address climate change.By analyzing the ways,reasons and impacts of the federal government's negative constraint,it helps sub-national actors to set the scope of authority more flexibly without touching the bottom line of laws and regulations.This paper empirically compares the climate governance of U.S.sub-national actors in the above three dimensions and concludes that,in both inner-dimensional and inter-dimensional comparisons,U.S.sub-national actors play a greater role in the horizontal dimension,especially when it comes to the increasing influence of cities in climate cooperation with China through transnational city networks,and U.S.cities are facilitators of climate governance under the active response of the federal government to climate change.In the case of the negative response from federal government to climate change,cities play an indirect leadership role through transnational city networks.Therefore,cities will have more prospects for climate cooperation with China in transnational city networks.