Study On Governance Mechanism Of Low‐Carbon City In Western Countries

With the trend of institutionalization in global environment protection, it has become an important issue in politics and economics to establish a fair, reasonable and effective climate governance system in the world range. In the last decade, low-carbon governance system based on low-carbon developing mode has attracted more and more attention. Especially, governance for low-carbon city became the core concept in establishing the responding policy to climate change. Due to the remarkable synergistic effect of climate policy and sustainable development in local government terms, it is likely that local government began to play the main role in supervision, policy supply and encouragement. As a result, the research and practice in governance mechanism of low-carbon city has been in investigation for years in many western countries. A resounding success has been achieved in controlling carbon emission. Both in theoretical and practical terms, it is believed that we can benefit from the experiences and lessons of low-carbon city governance in western countries. In this thesis, based on the research and practice in low-carbon city governance of western countries, an overview and an analysis for both inner-city governance and inter-city collaboration mechanisms of low-carbon city governance in western countries were made. The thesis consists of six chapters:Chapter One introduces the background of research about low-carbon city governance, both in theory and in practice. Referring to a large number of researches published in recent years, we try to overlook the current research field. Existence of shortcomings and inadequates of current research provide a basis for this thesis. At the end of this section, the chief content, structure, novelties and shortcomings of the thesis are presented.Chapter Two mainly discusses the political logic in low-carbon city governance, including the general principle, the policies and the impact of national particularity in the viewpoint of Polycentric Governance Theory.Chapter Three makes a main revision to the history of low carbon city governance in western countries. Development of concepts clarifying, including of low-carbon economy, low-carbon society and to low-carbon city, is presented. With introduction of four low-carbon cities in western countries, the development in low-carbon city practice is studied.Chapter Four assorts four types of inner-city governance mechanisms for local government, based on both the range and extent of government's power application in the process to take the responding policy to climate change. They were termed as self-governing, governing through enabling, governing by provision and governing by authority, respectively. By providing examples in the practicing process for local governments in western countries, these four governance mechanisms are analyzed. Their detailed application range and characteristics are also discussed. We also evaluate the effect and limit in the process of policy's practice.Chapter Five discusses two types of inter-city collaboration governance mechanisms in the viewpoint of outside-collaboration, in which the local government is treated as one part of the global climate governance system. They were named as horizontal and vertical collaboration, respectively. Horizontal collaboration is similar to self-governing of local government. In the mean time, vertical collaboration comprises climate governance within metro-regions and national networking. According to the role played by government, we also assort three types of mechanisms for vertical collaboration. A study and evaluation is made by analyzing several typical low-carbon cities in many counties.Chapter Six is an analytical review on the research mentioned above. Several points are made about low-carbon city governance mechanism, and based on which, the thesis also provides a few suggestions to Chinese cities in terms of low-carbon city governance and policy establishing.