Topic: Climate governance and carbon-intensive industry: a political economic view?

Speaker: Prof. ZHANG Xiaoling, City University of Hong Kong

Host: Prof. ZHOU Weihua

Tim: 14:00-15:30 December 1st, 2016 (Thursday)

Venue: Room 1102

Abstract: This seminar investigates whether a theoretical framework offer possibilities to restructure to a sustainable, environmental-friendly socio-economic system, which can further contribute to the climate governance at the industry level. The framework is combined with pro-growth machine, carbon lock-in theory and Institutional Industry Complex (IIC) thesis, which were therefore applied to explain the pro-growth coalition of carbon-intensive industry in China. Consensus building of the research framework is based upon a case study of the Petro-Chemical state owned enterprises in China. Drawing upon the in-depth interviews with the stakeholders in the IIC system, the research discovered the pro-growth coalition of Petro-Chemical industry in China. This paper finally concludes by constructing a pro-growth coalition that could serve as a program to unlock the path-dependence of petrochemical industry and foster the anti-coalition mechanism, which can act as proactive approaches for climate governance.