The dark side of ambition: side-effects of China's climate policy

China's climate change policy leadership ambition is growing. In 2015 under its first nationally determined contribution (NDC) China committed to peak CO₂ emissions by 2030. After committing to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, China has strengthened existing climate targets and announced new climate targets at the 2020 Climate Ambition Summit, namely by 2030 to: (a) lower by more than 65% ⁴ CO₂ emissions per unit of gross domestic production, (b) increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to 25% ⁵ and (c) expand forest stock by 6 billion cubic meters ⁶ compared to 2005 [1, 2]. China has stated that its installed capacity of solar and wind power will be over 12 billion kilowatts by 2030 [1]. Chinese renewable energy generation, capacity, and investment have increased (see figures 1(a)–(c) and Supplementary material (available online at stacks.iop.org/ERL/16/111001/mmedia)). Renewable energy investments comprise over 59% of total energy investments since 2009 and are increasing (despite missing data on solar investments from 2017 to 2019). Xi announced at the April 2021 Leaders Summit on Climate that China will restrict coal consumption throughout 2021–2025, phase down coal consumption throughout 2026–2030, and strengthen the control of non-CO₂ greenhouse gas emissions [3].

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However, China's carbon-intensive activities contradict its climate change mitigation ambition [5, 6]. China is still heavily reliant on fossil fuels, accounting for 88% of total energy consumption in 2014 [7] and 84.7% of primary energy consumption in 2019 [8]. China's coal consumption contributed to 52% of global CO₂ emissions from coal combustion in 2015 [9]. Moreover, China's response to COVID-19 has increased investment in emissions-intensive industries, not less [10, 11]. Another 100 GW of coal-fired plants are currently under construction [5]. Because of ongoing emissions-intense activity, China has resorted to extreme emissions reduction policies to meet ambitious climate targets.

However, many of China's extreme climate actions come with side-effects—they are actively detrimental to other environmental and social goals (table 1) despite being effective instruments of emissions reduction. These actions have already threatened many species and will put more pressure on fragile ecosystems in many regions. Many actions also bring high social costs. These risks are especially worrisome without careful holistic planning and policy. For example, some actions may trigger power outages and restrictions [12], increase unemployment (e.g. employment in coal industries can decline by 75% [13]), compromise the interests of extractive communities [14], and negatively impact regional development, especially northeastern China [12].

China's low-carbon transition needs to be assessed from a just transition lens to examine its benefits, limits, and potential conflicts [15]. Just transitions are not just a matter of ensuring justice for those embedded in fossil-based industries of the past. Justice for actors within the transition, for example, those related to new renewable industries, are just as important [16], but have been overlooked.

Creating and assessing climate policy with single overriding metrics, such as emissions-intensive investment or renewable energy industries, overlooks critical social outcomes and compromises just transitions. Focus on single overriding metrics may misrepresent China's policy process [58]. For example, increased investment in concrete and steel after COVID-19 [10] may not mean China's low-carbon transition is compromised. This could instead represent acceleration. Concrete and steel can be used in the construction of hydropower dams, wind turbines, solar farms and supporting infrastructure, such as roads and bridges [17].

Intersectional climate policy analysis, highlighting dimensions of social costs and social justice, is needed to accurately capture the outcomes and impacts of China's climate actions. The trade-offs, risks and benefits must be considered explicitly, both in external policy analysis and internal policy decisions. In particular, understanding political motives [59] may be needed to judge China's climate mitigation performance, especially by looking at how its power affects domestic and global communities [60].

Side-effects of climate mitigation actions have been often downplayed or ignored due to the focus on reducing carbon emissions [61–63]. Even less impactful climate actions have had high social costs, especially on indigenous communities' livelihoods and culture [61, 62]. Why does China still promote such actions despite past experiences and current problems (table 1) [12, 64]? Cross-scale intersectional climate policy analysis can help to identify some hints on China's climate choice by connecting China's climate performance to its larger-scale political ambitions, such as geopolitical influences [65].

China's climate mitigation choices are primarily a matter of political and industrial strategy, not altruistic climate mitigation [12, 66, 67]. China's climate leadership is driven by the aspirations of positive international influence as a 'responsible' country. International cooperation on climate governance is increasingly important for global governance [68]. China, as the world's largest emitter of CO₂, aims to project more soft power through its leading commitment to climate change, especially by comparing with some 'slow' Western countries, such as Australia [69, 70]. Climate mitigation has been prioritized in its development and diplomacy strategies [71–73], even sometimes given priority over the COVID-19 vaccine [74]. China's spokesperson Hua Chunying has emphasized that climate cooperation between US and China is a critical political priority [74].

China's climate ambition is not only affecting domestic citizens' livelihoods and interests [14, 17, 31], but also communities in other countries [75, 76]. Although 80% of China's overseas energy investment are in fossil fuels as of 2018, it faces increased global pressure to close fossil fuel facilities, as well as respond to public pressure when locals feel they do not benefit enough or encounter environmental issues trigged by these Chinese investment projects [77, 78]. Consequently, China's policies increasingly encourage environmentally and socially responsible overseas energy investment [78, 79]. For example, Chinese Belt and Road investments in renewable energy infrastructure in developing countries will be over 1 trillion US dollars (USD) by 2030 [80, 81]. Chinese entities invested over USD 216 billion in overseas power plants from 2000 to 2017. USD 40.5 B is directly invested in renewable electric power, including hydropower (USD 23.1 B), nuclear (USD 6.7 B), solar (USD 5.5 B), and wind (USD 5.2 B) [81]. Moreover, in the first half of 2021, there were no Belt and Road investments into coal for the first time, despite plans to restrict coal investments from 2013 [82].

These overseas investments align with the Paris Agreement but still have high impacts on local communities. For example, China's hydropower expansion on the upper Mekong River and investment in dams in the lower Mekong basin has negatively impacted downstream ecosystem and community livelihoods [83–85]. Despite committing to no new funding for coal fired power stations in September 2021 [86], China's green Belt and Road investments have also been characterized as 'greenwashing' [87], especially in lower-income countries and regions. Low-carbon investments were mostly concentrated in higher-income countries and regions while lower-income countries and regions have not benefitted from a shift away from traditional infrastructure projects [87], negative impacts (e.g. pollution and neocolonialism), and risks for local communities [88]. China's other green investments are also critical instruments of diplomacy and influence on host countries' local governance [76, 80, 89], representing China's green mercantilism that aims to build coalition on climate change and sustainable development policies [90], and lead the world to green and zero-carbon futures [91].

In summary, China projects soft power and cultivates an image of a responsible international citizen by actively participating in international climate institutions. However, such participation triggers new impacts on host communities that are mostly overlooked.

While China's climate policies have a number of side-effects, they are not necessarily undesirable. Moreover, China's 'forward-looking' climate actions can provide lessons for others on managing perverse impacts and trade-offs of climate actions. All climate actions we discussed previously are effective instruments of emissions reduction, and are therefore worthwhile supporting if e negative impacts are reduced.

Adverse side-effects do not have to be a consequence of emissions reduction [6]. Policy amendments can reduce perverse outcomes and unlock positive social impacts [92]. Ensuring positive social outcomes can reduce social resistance, aid scalability and long-term policy resilience, and are an opportunity to demonstrate climate leadership [93]. Not doing so risks repeating the mistakes and inequality that has hindered climate policy in the past [61, 62]. To achieve a just transition, we outline five policy approaches that should be integrated into current and future decision-making, especially for countries and regions that take big and rapid steps towards climate change mitigation.

Approach 1: Explore more bottom-up policy, finance, and decision-making approaches, like community microgrids that are reviving some Chinese rural areas [94], that can complement top-down interventions [95]. Strategies and policies should be consistent with local circumstances, meet local development objectives and needs, and adapt to local political priorities [96].

Approach 2: Restrict local malpractice in climate governance by ensuring accountability [97] and invest in engagement and integration of a wide range of community-level stakeholders to identify just and adaptive pathways [98].

Approach 3: Invest in robust and transparent assessment, monitoring and evaluation of environmental and social impacts of proposed emissions reduction policies [12, 98].

Approach 4: Provide retraining or adequate compensation packages and ongoing supports, such as redistributing profits from green projects, for people who are negatively impacted by emissions reduction policy [99].

Approach 5: Involve more international organizations in climate governance [100] and respect host communities' rights and views on investments [80].

These approaches should not be considered nor implemented in isolation. For example, bottom-up engagement (Approaches 1 and 2) can help inform effective implementation of retraining or compensation for impacted peoples (Approach 4). Similarly, involving international participants (Approach 5) can contribute to better engage local communities (Approach 2) and provide more robust assessment of prospective impacts.

Policy driven by a single overriding metric, in this case, emissions reductions, generates adverse side-effects. Policymakers and analysts must look beyond emissions reductions to identify solutions that generate multiple benefits. Understanding, and addressing adverse side-effects of well-intentioned policy is critical to just, low-carbon transitions and sustainable development. Unacceptable social trade-offs plagued the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol [61] and persist today [101]. In order to ensure the success of the Paris Agreement and current climate policy, processes should be adopted to maximize benefits, minimize costs, identify potential conflicts, and understand the trade-offs of climate policies. Actions now can determine whether history will see 'The Chinese Century' [73] as an achievement of modern civilization, or a monument to inequality.

We thank the two anonymous reviewers, whose critical and constructive feedback helped to improve and refine this work.

All data that support the findings of this study are included within the article (and any supplementary files).

This work was supported by the Fenner School of Environment and Society at the Australian National University under Grant No. 5998099, as well as China Scholarship Council (CSC) under Grant No. 201808190012.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.