China is a major contributor to global environmental problems and is central to solving them. Its actions have important implications for global environmental governance (GEG). China has become an important global actor in many ways. Given China’s domestic politics and role in international environmental politics in the last decade, our overarching research question is:
How can we explain China's role in international environmental cooperation on climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution/chemicals? To respond to the questions, we examine changes in China's policies and actions over time and compare across the three issue areas. Global environmental cooperation is a suitable arena for exercising leadership because the environment is generally seen as a 'low politics' arena, compared to the 'high politics' associated with foreign policy, security and trade.
In October 2025, the entire project team will hold a workshop at Tsinghua University to discuss research results. Work on peer-reviewed articles is well underway: "China’s role in global biodiversity governance" has been accepted in the journal Asian Perspective; "The Minamata Convention and climate/environmental policy" has been accepted in One Earth; an article comparing industrial leadership in climate policy and great power rivalry between China, the USA, and the EU is in progress. Project participants have taken part in negotiations for the plastics treaty in Korea and interviewed Norwegian actors about China’s role in global environmental negotiations. Outreach activities include presentations in Norway, such as Arendalsuka, the Climate Festival, and at international seminars/conferences. Several project participants are also members of expert groups on global climate governance and the circular economy under the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED), which is directly relevant to the project work. A short fieldwork will take place in China in October, with interviews/meetings with academia and ministries.
Geopolitical tensions between China and Western countries are increasing. International climate cooperation remains possible but challenging due to the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. Climate, the green transition, geopolitics, and security are increasingly interconnected. China’s dominance in global green transition supply chains creates challenges. Nationally, China’s CO2 emissions have fallen over the past 12 months, while coal still dominates the energy landscape. China’s 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030), and the goal of peaking emissions by 2030, are approaching. China recently announced updated climate targets: to reduce total GHG emissions by seven to ten percent by 2035. Given China’s major progress in renewable energy, the targets are considered weaker than expected, even though it represents an increase in the country’s climate ambition. It is nevertheless assumed that China will be able to meet and exceed its commitments on paper due to the progress over the last few years with its energy transition.
China co-hosted with Canada the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and helped reach a renewed agreement for nature. China had high ambitions to move the Convention on Nature in the direction of its own goals and played a decisive role in bringing African countries into line with the majority in the final agreement: Many African countries fear that digitalization of genetic information could undermine the CBD's regime of access and fair distribution of the benefits from the use of genetic material. China generally scores low on the leadership indicators, in a couple of cases bordering on the laggard indicator. The Chinese term 'ecological civilization' appeared to be closer to sustainable use than conservation of biological diversity and China therefore received no support from other parties for this change. China scores low on national nature management and cannot rely on its own target achievements to lead global biodiversity efforts.
China is actively participating in the negotiations for a new global and legally binding environmental agreement to prevent and reduce plastic pollution. China is not among the more ambitious countries in the negotiations. We nevertheless see a significant change from a few years ago, when China played a more passive role and showed caution regarding addressing this issue internationally (nationally, China has launched its own five-year action plan to reduce plastic pollution). The global agreement was not finalized within the original timeline (by the end of 2024), and it remains to be seen what role China will have/take in the next rounds of negotiations. Given China’s significant production, consumption, and export of plastics, negotiators from other countries consider it crucial that China is part of a final agreement, which gives important role in the negotiations.
As a major contributor to global environmental problems, China is central to solving them. Its actions have important implications for the effectiveness of global environmental governance (GEG), as China’s role may involve wielding its structural power, building coalitions, and exercising leadership ambitions. Global environmental cooperation could be a suitable arena for practicing leadership because the environment is generally seen as a ‘low-politics’ arena, compared to the ‘high-politics’ associated with foreign policy related to security and trade. International environmental politics are also linked to key national interests in controlling scarce energy and natural resources and foreign policy ambitions, sometimes with crucial repercussions for poor countries, global security, and world order. While environmental politics is advancing on international agendas the geopolitical situation is becoming increasingly tense, not least between China and the West. This calls for a study of China’s role and behaviour in GEG, narrowing our focus to international environmental negotiations on climate change, biodiversity, and chemicals/pollution. These issues may be a useful prism for understanding China’s key role in other world order issues.
Given China’s domestic politics and role in international environmental politics in the last decade, our overarching research question is: How can we assess and explain China’s roles in international environmental cooperation on climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution / chemicals? This can be divided into two research topics: 1) How to pinpoint and describe (variation in) China’s role – can its role be categorised in terms of leadership, as the laggard, or structural power? 2) What are the major domestic and international drivers accounting for China’s evolving role and ambitions in GEG?
We examine changes in Chinas behaviour over time and compare across these issue areas.
