Int Environ Agreements (2013) 13:291–305

DOI 10.1007/s10784-012-9189-7

ORIGINAL PAPER

China and climate justice: moving beyond statism

Paul G. Harris • Alice S. Y. Chow • Rasmus Karlsson

Accepted: 13 July 2012 / Published online: 28 July 2012

Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012

Abstract China is the largest national source of greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution causing
climate change. However, despite some rhetorical progress at the 2011 Durban climate
conference, it has consistently rejected calls to take on binding targets to reduce its GHG
emissions. The Chinese Government has understandably argued that developed states are
responsible for the predominant share of historical GHG emissions, have greater capacity
to pay for the cost of mitigation, and indeed have an obligation to do so before China is
required to take action. However, due to the explosive growth in its GHG emissions, China
is now in a position to single-handedly dash any hope of climate stability if its position
does not change. On the diplomatic level, other big polluters, particularly the United States,
will not enter into new binding agreements to reduce substantially their own GHG emis-
sions without a credible commitment from China. Challenging the ‘‘statist’’ framing of the
climate justice, this article explores the possibility for China to take on a leadership role in
climate change diplomacy in a way that allows it to maintain its long-standing principled
resistance to binding national emissions targets while making meaningful progress toward
combating the problem. Action by China’s rapidly growing affluent classes may hold the
key to long-term climate stability.

Keywords China
Climate change
Climate justice
International justice

Responsibility
Statism

Abbreviations
ATP Ability-to-pay principle
BPP Beneficiary-pays principle
CO2 Carbon dioxide
EMCP Equalized-mitigation-costs principle

P. G. Harris (&)
A. S. Y. Chow

Department of Social Sciences, Hong Kong Institute of Education, 10 Lo Ping Road,
Tai Po, Hong Kong
e-mail: pharris@ied.edu.hk

R. Karlsson
Department of U-Peace, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul, South Korea

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GHG Greenhouse gas

IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
kWh Kilowatt-hour
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
PPP Polluter-pays principle
UNFCCC United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

1 Introduction

As the largest national source of greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution—fully one-fifth of the
global total—China finds itself at center stage in international efforts to combat climate
change (Raupach et al. 2007; CDC Climat 2011: 1). Without a major commitment from
China to limit and eventually reduce this pollution, the United States and other big pol-
luters will not enter into a new binding international agreement to aggressively tackle the
problem. However, China has so far refused to accept legally binding absolute emissions
targets, instead pledging to limit its economy’s carbon intensity (fossil fuel energy effi-
ciency). China points out that the developed countries have been contributing for centuries
to the buildup of GHGs in the atmosphere. It argues from the perspective of international
(that is, inter-state) justice that developing countries should be exempt from caps on GHG
emissions that would limit their economic development. China’s refusal to accept binding
GHG limits, let alone cuts, has been a substantial ingredient in the prevailing international
impasse on climate change (Saran 2010). For example, it has been used by the US Con-
gress to reject GHG cuts in the United States, and it was used by Canada as one justifi-
cation for withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol.
China insists that climate change is a problem that the developed countries should
address first, as reaffirmed by Premier Wen Jiabao at the 2009 Copenhagen climate change
conference (Wen 2009). The only GHG emissions limitations that China has been willing
to accept are those that are voluntary. At the 2011 climate conference in Durban, Chinese
diplomats said that China would accept binding commitments sometime after 2020, but
only if developed countries first meet all of the obligations they have repeatedly failed to
fulfill (China Daily 2011). This argument is compatible with many scholarly conceptions
of climate justice. China is a relative latecomer to the group of high GHG emitters. Its
annual emissions are rising rapidly, but its historical contribution to the atmospheric stock
of GHGs is relatively small compared to the United States, particularly on a per capita
basis (Botzen et al. 2008).
Bearing this in mind, and considering China’s vast population and its undeniable right
to development, few ethicists would hold China responsible for the large costs associated
with mitigating climate change. However, to free China from the task of reducing GHG
pollution means ignoring the responsibilities of hundreds of millions of affluent people
living in China. At present, the wealthiest person in China has no legal obligation to pay for
climate change mitigation, while the poorest person in (for example) the United Kingdom
is required to pay high prices for energy to help all of Britain comply with its international
obligations to reduce GHG emissions. Meanwhile, the realities of climate change are
becoming ever harsher. Keeping the concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere below
dangerous levels will be far more difficult than previously thought (Monastersky 2009).
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), much criticized by ‘‘climate
sceptics’’ for overstating the threat of climate change, predicted as recently as 2007 that

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many of the worst effects would occur late this century (IPCC 2007). However, subsequent
scientific reports reveal that the dangerous impacts of climate change will happen much
sooner, and it is likely that they will be more severe than the IPCC predicted (Garnaut
2011).
China’s GHG emissions are increasing at a staggering rate of 12 % each year, driven by
its energy-intensive export industry and by a growing affluent class living in major cities
and coastal regions (CO2 Scorecard Group 2011). If current trends continue, China will
single-handedly dash any hope of global climate stability, something that will have
disastrous consequences for the world, not least for China itself.
In light of these worrying realities, the aim of this article is to reassess China’s position
on climate change. Its official resistance to binding GHG limitations is premised on a state-
centric view of climate justice: richer states caused the problem and poorer ones did not.
Some theorists have tried to move beyond such ‘‘statist’’ assumptions behind climate
justice and to formulate alternative approaches that are more sensitive to differences in
emissions levels not only among states but also within them (Baer et al. 2009; Chakravarty
et al. 2009; Harris 2010b). By disaggregating national emissions, it may be possible to
perceive more clearly the responsibilities of affluent people everywhere, including within
China and other countries where economies and GHG emissions are growing rapidly. This
can be done while simultaneously affirming long-standing principles of international jus-
tice and the right to development.
To explore this perspective, here, we survey some traditional statist conceptions of cli-
mate justice and look briefly at how they are represented in diplomatic debates. On this basis,
an alternative perspective for viewing climate policy is introduced. The purpose is to
determine whether China can maintain its principled resistance to national responsibility for
climate change, while at the same time, justifying that affluent people in China should take on
individual responsibilities. If such a middle road can be found—between China’s current
environmentally damaging position (no developing state responsibility) and the impossible
(and historically unfair) requirement that it should take on the responsibilities of a developed
country—moral and political pressure would be applied to the United States and other
developed countries to finally contribute their fair share to climate change mitigation.
This is not to suggest in any way that China alone should shoulder the responsibility of
mitigating climate change. Instead, the message is that global leadership by China may be
necessary to break the kind of international buck-passing that has led to decades of dip-
lomatic negotiations but far too little concrete action to stop, let alone reverse, climate
change.

2 Perspectives on climate justice

As the climate crisis worsens, the political pressure to find an equitable international
burden-sharing framework will increase. There is now a substantial literature that opera-
tionalizes what climate justice among states might look like in practice. Working within
the conceptual universe of applied ethics, authors such as Simon Caney (2010), Stephen
Gardiner (2011), Henry Shue (1993), and Steve Vanderheiden (2008) have made important
contributions to our understanding of the justice implications of climate policy, and a
number of scholarly surveys have appeared (Gardiner 2004; Heyward 2007; Klinsky and
Dowlatabadi 2009; Cripps 2011). These surveys point to several major statist approaches
to climate justice that can serve as the basis for a simplified framework for examining
China’s position and for highlighting an alternative non-statist approach (see Table 1).

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 Table 1 Typology of statist and non-statist burden-sharing principles
294

Statist Non-statist

Responsibility for causing the Ability to pay (ATP) Benefits derived from emitting (BPP) Equalized mitigation Individuals, based on their

123
problem (PPP) cost (EMCP) capabilities and their contributions to
the problem

Based on Yes No Yes No No

historical
account
Normative States that caused the problem States that have the States should pay relative to how much States should pay All capable individuals should
appeal should pay greatest ability they have benefitted from emitting equally because the contribute regardless of their
should pay problem is global nationality
Main Cannot make past generations Exempts large Problems of historical responsibility Ignores the problem of States should be responsible
objections pay; cases of excusable developing state and indirect benefits from emitting historical
ignorance; relative poor states emitters; exempts that are provided even to those states responsibility;
can be large emitters due to the affluent people in that have polluted very little; exempts rewards historical
relocation of polluting export developing states affluent people in developing states high emitters and
industries punishes low
emitters
Implications Minimal mitigation efforts Some mitigation Some mitigation efforts because China Large mitigation Mandatory obligations for affluent
for China because China is newly efforts because benefits from its emissions efforts because people in China to pay for
industrialized China is becoming China is now a large mitigation or cut emissions while
increasingly wealthy emitter the Chinese state as a whole
maintains its resistance to binding
emissions
China’s role If using an early attribution start China is still a Developed states have benefitted most China’s present None for the state; affluent
for climate date, China is not a major developing country and they should compensate emissions are for individuals in China and in other
(in)justice polluter with great poverty, developing states economic and social states would take the lead
large income progress that
disparities and a low developed states
ability to pay have achieved
Conflicting China is now the largest GHG China is the world’s China also benefitted from past Without China’s active Will put moral and political pressure
views of polluter with responsibility second largest emissions and should take more participation, global on other large emitters, notably the
other states economy and has responsibility mitigation is United States, to also take robust
the ability to pay ineffective action on climate change
P. G. Harris et al.
China and climate justice 295

As with other environmental problems, one possible distribution rule for climate change
is the polluter-pays principle (PPP). It may seem obvious that those who have caused the
problem of climate change should bear the burden of solving it. As Shue points out, ‘‘All
over the world parents teach their children to clean up their own mess’’ (Shue 1999: 533).
However, despite its strong intuitive appeal, PPP is difficult to apply to climate change.
First, there is the problem of determining who should be responsible for the GHG emis-
sions of previous generations (Schussler 2011). Moral responsibility normally presupposes
some kind of choice, yet it is difficult to see ‘‘how the inhabitants of any one country can
have had any choice as regards to the amounts of fossil fuels burnt up by earlier gener-
ations’’ (Beckerman and Passek 1995: 410). Second, there is the related problem of
excusable ignorance. Governments and individuals can claim that they were ignorant about
the detrimental consequences of GHG emissions before the advent of recent climate sci-
ence (Grubb 1995: 491). Even today, many people doubt the overwhelming scientific
evidence proving climate change (Gallup 2010). Although ignorance (and especially
willful ignorance) is not a legitimate excuse today, it is ethically problematic to say that
people in the past should be held morally responsible for a problem that they did not know
existed. Third, a more powerful critique of PPP is that many relatively poor countries have
become high emitters due to the relocation of polluting export-oriented industries from the
developed states to the developing world (Kellenberg 2009). In such cases, it may be that
implementing PPP would ‘‘perpetuate the poverty of some and reduce others to poverty’’
(Caney 2010: 212).
Given these and other problems with PPP, some authors (Miller 2009; Caney 2010)
have suggested that it should be replaced by or complemented with an ability-to-pay
principle (ATP). Unlike PPP, which is concerned with causality and identifying historical
responsibility, ATP is forward-looking, requiring that burdens of climate change ‘‘should
be borne by the wealthy, and moreover, that the duty should increase in line with an agent’s
wealth’’ (Caney 2010: 213). One of the most immediate objections to the ATP principle, if
it is applied to states (rather then to individuals), is that it exempts the hundreds of millions
of affluent people now living in poor and newly industrializing countries. Applying ATP at
the state level would reward countries with large inequalities in wealth. Wealthy indi-
viduals in those countries can hide behind the overall poverty of their national community.
Furthermore, the ATP principle might be questioned for potentially diminishing incentives
to contribute productive work to society. The importance of this effect, and what society
could do to offset it, is controversial ideological questions.
Another conception of climate justice advanced by scholars is the beneficiary-pays
principle (BPP) (Gosseries 2004; Butt 2007). In its most basic form, BPP says that those
who have benefitted from carbon-intensive activities in the past should pay for mitigation
and possibly for compensation to those who will suffer from the negative effects of climate
change. At first glance, this principle appears normatively appealing because it seems to
address the mismatch between beneficiaries of fossil fuel energy and victims of climate
impacts who have not caused the problem—what has been called the ‘‘double inequality’’
of climate change (Klinsky and Dowlatabadi 2009: 90). However, as with PPP, BPP tends
to lead to questions of historical responsibility, such as who should be held responsible for
the benefits that past generations derived from GHG pollution, and it gives rise to other
problems, such as determining how much countries that have not emitted much them-
selves, but which have benefitted indirectly from industrialization through trade, should
pay (Caney 2006: 473).
A further burden-sharing principle is based on the notion of comparability. Because
climate change is a global problem, an ‘‘equalized-mitigation-costs principle’’ (EMCP)

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suggests that the costs of dealing with it should be divided into ‘‘equally burdensome
shares’’ (Traxler 2002: 101). Some take this to mean that all countries should reduce their
emissions levels by an equal proportion of their current emissions levels (McKibben and
Wilcoxen 2002). A more reasonable interpretation would be that it requires each country to
give the same relative effort in relation to its available resources. The main objection is
again that this ignores the question of historical responsibility. This principle would also
reward high emitters to some extent, while punishing countries with limited emissions.
However, irrespective of these problems, the ideas of a proportional reduction compared to
past emissions and of comparability in terms of effort have made it into real-world
deliberations on climate change, for example as expressed in the ‘‘grandfathering’’ of
emissions rights under the Kyoto Protocol.
Generally speaking, the disparate ways in which these (and other) statist principles
apply to, and are interpreted by, different countries mean that they throw up significant
objections (see Table 1). Consequently, statist principles are important but inadequate
guides to climate diplomacy and associated policies, as revealed by the last quarter-century
of international negotiations.

3 Justice in climate change diplomacy

During international negotiations since the late 1980s, governments have sought to find
mutually agreeable approaches to climate change. Questions of climate justice have moved
beyond academic debate to become features of climate diplomacy (Lange et al. 2007).
There are many reasons for this, including the voluntary nature of international agreements
and the lack of a supranational authority to enforce them. This makes provisions for
international equity crucial to secure acceptance and continual adherence to any regime for
controlling GHG emissions (Rose et al. 1998: 25). However, the climate negotiations have
shown that conflicting conceptions of international justice can in themselves be sources of
contention.
For most developing countries, including China, a fundamental concern has been the
question of historical responsibility, what might be called ‘‘backward-looking consider-
ations’’ (Gardiner 2004: 579). While no one disputes that the developed countries are
responsible for the majority of historical emissions, in international negotiations, the
question has been about the specific role that this historical responsibility should play in
climate policy. Traditionally, this debate has been interpreted in dichotomous terms, with
the interests of developing countries contrasted with those of the developed world. The
1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change declares that the
developed countries should take the lead in tackling climate change and addressing its
consequences due to their greater historical responsibility for causing the problem (UN-
FCCC, Article 3[1]). The developing countries, with many of their basic developmental
needs still unmet, were not required to undertake GHG emissions reductions under the
climate change agreements. They were instead allowed to focus on poverty alleviation and
economic development.
Although the developed countries opposed an explicit inclusion of PPP in the UNFCCC,
the convention nevertheless recognized that while all countries have obligations to respond
to climate change, some of them—the developed countries—have greater ‘‘differentiated’’
responsibilities due to their disproportionate GHG emissions and the economic benefits
that they have derived from emitting GHGs since the Industrial Revolution. This idea,
often expressed in the formula of ‘‘common but differentiated responsibility,’’ was agreed

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during negotiations in the mid-1990s and codified in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which
explicitly distinguished between obligations of so-called Annex I (developed) countries
and non-Annex I (developing) countries (Harris 2010b: 79–86). Annex I countries were
assigned legally binding GHG emissions targets, whereas the non-Annex I countries were
not asked to limit, let alone reduce, their emissions.
At the time that the Kyoto protocol was negotiated, this exemption for the developing
countries probably still seemed quite reasonable to most diplomats because those coun-
tries’ historical share of global GHG emissions was relatively small, as were their per
capita emissions. However, since the 1990s, a number of large developing countries have
seen extraordinarily strong economic growth that has increased the share of total GHG
emissions coming from non-OECD countries to 57.4 % of the global total (British
Petroleum 2011). This development, along with the fact that almost all future emissions
growth is expected to take place in the developing world (Sheehan 2008), has encouraged
developed countries to advocate a new template for historical responsibility, one that also
mandates emissions reductions from large developing countries, notably China. Given the
poverty that still exists in many parts of the developing world, it is understandable that
developing countries have resisted new binding commitments. Such commitments would
shift the abatement burden toward those states that are least responsible for causing the
problem (see Agarwal and Narain 1991).
As much as everyone recognizes the need to find a burden-sharing formula that can
generally be accepted as ‘‘fair’’ by most governments (Ringius et al. 2002), the framing of
the climate change problematique in terms of states does not seem to offer much hope for
achieving this. Despite decades of negotiations, the world is still very far from forging a
legally binding agreement that would be remotely close to the global GHG emissions
reductions considered necessary by scientists—exceeding 80 % by mid-century—to ensure
some semblance of climate stability, although even then major impacts will be inevitable
(Parry et al. 2008). Progress has often been measured by whether the official multilateral
negotiation process itself will continue or fall victim to narrowly defined national interests.
Looking only at aggregate national numbers, most developing countries lack the capacity
to curb their own rising emissions, whereas the developed countries, cash-strapped after the
global financial crisis, find it increasingly difficult to persuade their constituencies of the
need for concerted action to cut GHG emissions at home, let alone persuade them to pay
for large financial transfers to enable GHG mitigation in the developing world.
Meanwhile, irrespective of their greater historical responsibility for causing climate
change, a number of developed countries, such as the United States, Japan, and Canada,
have made their participation in any successor to Kyoto Protocol conditional upon reci-
procal commitments from the large emerging economies in the developing world (Saran
2010: 680). Indeed, Canada has withdrawn from the protocol in large part for lack of such
commitments (Kent 2011). Because most developing countries will agree to these reci-
procal commitments only if their actions are supported financially by developed countries,
the prospects for a new and comprehensive agreement that does enough to address global
GHG pollution are quite limited, despite pledges to move in this direction made at the 2011
Durban climate change conference.
Each side—many major developed states on one hand, the large developing states
(including China) on the other—has made its participation dependent on the other side
making a first bold move. China has been at the epicenter of this fault line. For example, it
was singled out by some as being responsible for the disappointing outcome of the 2009
Copenhagen talks (Miliband 2009). It was initially more forthcoming in Durban,
expressing a willingness to agree to binding GHG limits sometime after 2020. But it is

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willing to do this only if the developed states first fulfill all of their obligations under the
Kyoto Protocol and related agreements. With this in mind, we now look at Chinese
perceptions of climate justice.

4 Climate justice for China

Despite its phenomenal economic rise, China’s position on climate change, and climate
justice in particular, has remained quite consistent over time. Identifying itself as a
developing country, China has repeatedly argued that the responsibility for climate change
should reside with the developed world and that China must not be asked to take on
mandatory emissions reduction targets, certainly not before developed states act on their
obligations. An early example of this position can be found in the 1991 Beijing Ministerial
Declaration on Environment and Development:
Ever since the Industrial Revolution, the developed countries have over-exploited the
world’s natural resources through unsustainable patterns of production and con-
sumption, causing damage to the global environment, to the detriment of the
developing countries. Responsibility for the emissions of greenhouse gases should be
viewed both in historical and cumulative terms, and in terms of current emissions.
On the basis of the concept of equity, those developed countries who have con-
taminated most must contribute more (Quoted in Schokkaert and Eyckmans 1998:
205).
These arguments fit with the principle of common but differentiated responsibility for
climate change that China has emphasized repeatedly during international negotiations.
China has at times been open-minded about the obligations of developed states, but it
has a long-standing opposition to obligations for developing countries. For example, at the
1990 Second World Climate Conference, China’s delegate remarked: ‘‘Regarding the
suggestion that developed states should take the lead in cutting emissions, I should not
oppose nor overemphasise this point in the convention formulation. However, I should
oppose any proposed emissions-cutting requirements on developing states’’ (State Council
Environmental Protection Commission 1995: 259). Although the responsibility of devel-
oped states has been a major justice principle for China, its diplomatic strategy early in the
international climate change negotiations was to keep a low profile on the matter to avoid
drawing attention to its own responsibility (State Council Environmental Protection
Commission 1995: 247, 262). It was only in the late 1990s that its position changed toward
emphasizing the importance of developed states taking the lead, probably because the
Kyoto Protocol formalized the principle of common but differentiated responsibility
(Zhang 2010: 194). Facing mounting international pressure in recent years, China’s current
strategy is to be a leader in international negotiations in order to encourage global deals
favorable to its own future economic development (Hu and Guan 2008: 23).
In the period since China launched its Open-Door Policy and economic reforms in the
late 1970s, a roaring export industry has been the engine for its economic growth. Fueled
primarily by inexpensive coal, the country has become a leading manufacturer. China has
also moved into other energy-intensive sectors serving both international and domestic
markets, such as automobile manufacturing and shipbuilding. Reliable and cheap energy is
necessary for maintaining the country’s economic momentum and thereby securing its
ability to meet overarching political goals, such as poverty alleviation and social stability
(Heggelund 2007). Of the 4.2 million megawatt hours of electricity that China produces

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each year, more than 80 % comes from coal-fired power stations that emitted a staggering
6.1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2010 (British Petroleum 2011). Some of this
pollution has resulted from the displacement of polluting industries to China from
developed countries (Wang and Watson 2008). In recent years, China has been trying to
reduce its dependence on the export industry and to encourage domestic consumption, but
this has not reduced the need for energy because more people have installed household
appliances and purchased private automobiles. China’s domestic consumer market is
expanding rapidly. As a consequence, domestic consumption will have a large and growing
role in the country’s future emissions of GHGs (Boston Consulting Group 2009; McKinsey
& Company 2009). Indeed, China’s coal power use is expected to more than double by
2030 (Lewis 2007: 157).
China’s climate-related policies cannot be analyzed apart from its overall development
aims. Given how central these aims are for securing the political legitimacy of the Chinese
Communist Party, it is not surprising that the government has resisted taking on binding
GHG emissions reductions. Perhaps to avoid formal responsibility for the recent rapid
growth in China’s own GHG emissions, Chinese officials have argued for a very early date
for attributing national responsibility for climate change, often making references to
imperialism and to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution (as exemplified by the Beijing
Ministerial Declaration). By basing its arguments on such an historical account of climate
responsibility, China has had temporary respite from outside demands to reduce its emis-
sions. However, as China becomes responsible for more of the world’s cumulative GHG
emissions, the same historical argument will begin to work against it (see Harris 2011).
Unwilling to accept binding GHG emissions targets, least of all those requiring absolute
reductions in the country’s GHG pollution, China has focused on the relative carbon
intensity of its economy (i.e., energy efficiency). In its first national climate change
strategy, released in 2007, China explicitly stated that improvements in energy efficiency
and conservation were fundamental to its mitigation ambitions (Wei 2007). China has
made record investments in renewable energy, in particular hydroelectricity, but the
enormous rise in aggregate energy demand means that reductions in emissions intensity
have not been matched with absolute reductions. Instead, the country’s GHG emissions
continue to increase. Even by the measure of carbon intensity, planned reductions may not
materialize. After decades of continuous improvements as old power plants were shut
down, the carbon intensity of the Chinese economy has started to slide backwards, with
data for 2009 suggesting that it was back to the 1999 level (www.co2scorecard.org),
thereby putting in significant doubt China’s pledge at the Copenhagen conference to reduce
its carbon intensity.
Generally speaking, China has adopted a statist posture on climate change, emphasizing
in particular its sovereign right to economic development and the Chinese state’s low
historical emissions. This view was reaffirmed in 2010 by Yu Qingtai, China’s Special
Representative for Climate Change Negotiations: ‘‘China cannot commit to doing more
than its historical responsibility requires and, during negotiations, it must put its own
national interests first’’ (Chinadialogue 2010). Given the poverty that still prevails in many
parts of the country, this principled stance makes sense from most perspectives of climate
justice. However, with the growing discrepancy between China’s historical state respon-
sibility and the country’s current emissions, it is a stance that is becoming increasingly
difficult to reconcile with the realities of climate change. In possible anticipation of
international criticism, China has in recent years repeatedly stressed that its per capita
emissions remain comparatively low. At the 2008 Major Economies Meeting on Energy
Security and Climate Change held in Hokkaido, Japan, President Hu Jintao remarked:

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‘‘China’s per capita emission is relatively low, and is even lower if calculated in accu-
mulative terms. A significant share of China’s total emissions fall in the category of
subsistence emissions necessary to meet people’s basic needs’’ (China Climate Change
Info-Net 2008).
By emphasizing its relatively low per capita GHG emissions, China effectively obscures
the fact that a segment of its population is responsible for quite a large share of national
emissions. Given the great inequalities in China’s domestic development among a popu-
lation exceeding 1.3 billion, calculation of its per capita emissions results in a relatively
low number. However, this number fails to reflect the whole spectrum of China’s emis-
sions. Taking the pattern of China’s electricity consumption as an example, national per
capita electricity consumption in 2009 was 2,742 kWh (National Bureau of Statistics of
China 2011). Meanwhile, richer regions, such as Guangdong and Beijing, consumed 3,745
and 4,212 kWh, respectively (somewhat less than Portugal, but more than Hungary, on a
per capita basis) (National Bureau of Statistics of China 2011). Poorer regions, such as
Tibet and Guizhou, consumed far less—610 and 1,976 kWh, respectively (National Bureau
of Statistics of China 2011). Disaggregating China’s national economic patterns reveals
large intrastate variations (Feng et al. 2009), including a super-rich elite of yuan billion-
aires (Croll 2006) who have come to adopt highly carbon-intensive lifestyles. Research on
China’s urban households suggests that emissions of the highest income groups were more
than double those of the lowest income group (Golley et al. 2008: 347).
Chinese diplomats are not unaware of these varied contributions to GHG pollution and
the great differences in individual capabilities (i.e., wealth) within the country. Never-
theless, when attributing international (i.e., inter-state) responsibility for acting on climate
change, Chinese officials generalize these internal national disparities to a single sovereign
Chinese state even as they emphasize disparities in development within China to justify the
country’s inability to undertake further commitments. For example, in testimony to the
British Parliament’s Joint Committee on the Draft Climate Change Bill in 2007, Lu Xuedu,
Deputy Director General of the Office of Global Environmental Affairs in China’s Ministry
of Science and Technology, stated the following:
no matter what kind of binding commitment we will make in future, for the time
being it is not the time, because I do not know if your Excellency has had any
opportunity to visit China or not, in particular the poor areas, you will find that if you
have only visited Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong or Hong Kong you will see that this
is one China, but if you go to the countryside or if you drive from Beijing Tiananmen
Square, 2 h’ drive, you will see a totally different situation of China. So we say that
for the time being we have not that capability to make those commitments as
developed countries have. (UK Parliament Website 2007.)
In other words, Chinese officials want the world to focus on the many poor people in China
when assigned responsibility to China, thereby diverting attention from the hundreds of
millions of middle- and upper-class people who are living and polluting like people in the
West.
According to its own statist perspective, China’s definition of its active role in inter-
national cooperation on climate change is limited to supporting policies that lower its
global impact only when they will not undermine national economic development. Con-
sequently, if obligations and capabilities related to climate change are to be understood
only in terms of states, robust Chinese participation in climate change mitigation is unli-
kely, in spite of its growing national wealth and its increasing number of affluent citizens.

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5 Moving beyond statism

Despite the tremendous future environmental impact of its GHG emissions, China has
insisted that it bears little or no responsibility for climate change. From the perspective of
climate justice among states, the argument seems to be on China’s side. Indeed, China
deserves praise for its actions to become more energy efficient and less reliant than it might
be on fossil fuels. At the same time, however, if the most catastrophic consequences of
climate change are to be avoided, the world needs much more meaningful action from
China. Practically speaking, it is the growing emissions of China (and other large devel-
oping countries) that will greatly determine whether there is any chance of achieving
climate stability. The status quo is untenable as a survival strategy for the twenty-first
century. Given the very limited role of the world’s poor in causing climate change, it would
be fundamentally unjust to ask them to bear additional burdens. As much as one might
hope that moral considerations alone would be sufficient to persuade people in the
developed countries to act unilaterally, more than two decades of climate diplomacy do not
give much substance to that hope. Moreover, as the cumulative responsibility for climate
change shifts from the developed to the developing countries in the decades ahead, that
hope is likely to grow even fainter (Botzen et al. 2008).
To overcome this impasse and to move beyond the prevailing status quo in climate
diplomacy, there is an urgent need to rethink climate justice and in particular the statist
frame that is used when analyzing responsibilities and capabilities. If we open up the
traditionally closed box of ‘‘the state,’’ we see that the real divide is not so much between
developed and developing states as it is between affluent and poor people. There are now
hundreds of millions of affluent people living in otherwise poor countries of the world, and
their high-consumption lifestyles are causing major environmental damage (Myers and
Kent 2003). The ongoing consumption and pollution in the world’s wealthy countries do
not negate this new reality. Simply put, as a consequence of economic globalization, the
political geography of climate change is becoming increasingly complex (Harris 2010a).
One way of recognizing this is to focus less on states and more on people. At the heart of
such a rethink lies private affluence as an underlying cause of environmental destruction
(Hurth and Wells 2007) and as a source of financing for public investments in technologies
that are necessary to tackle climate change effectively. In short, to get robust mitigation
efforts off the ground, regulating and taxing the high-carbon lifestyles of the global middle
class, and of course the world’s most affluent people, is a necessity.
By taking into account not only international but also intra-national equity consider-
ations, it becomes possible to move beyond the simplistic developed–developing country
dichotomy and to reassess justice among states in the context of the practical realities of
climate change. While it is difficult to determine how much of the world’s total GHG
emissions can be derived from what Shue (1993) has called ‘‘luxury’’ (the affluent’s)
emissions and ‘‘subsistence’’ (the poor’s) emissions, it remains that there are substantial
numbers of people in the world who have the capability to contribute much more toward
climate change mitigation than they presently do. At the same time, there are billions of
people who live in extreme poverty and who, even if they are the ones most at risk from
climate change, remain the least capable of contributing toward mitigation. A non-statist
approach makes it possible to reconcile these simple facts by highlighting the role of
individuals rather than being obsessive about the role of states. Unlike the current approach
to climate change policy, which dictates that rich and poor alike should carry the same
burden merely because of the arbitrary fact of the country in which they happen to live, a
non-statist approach highlights the capabilities of each individual.

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China has an extraordinarily important role to play in such an approach. In a globalized

world, there is something anachronistic in the idea that affluent people in China should be
absolved of individual obligations regarding climate change simply by virtue of living in a
mostly (and historically) poor country. Yet this is the effect of the current climate change
agreements and their conceptual anchorage in a statist framework. In contrast, by adopting
a perspective that focuses more on people and less on sovereign states, China could be the
catalyst for breaking free of the you-go-first mentality that has largely determined the
world’s major responses to climate change (Harris 2010b). Acting from a people-centered
perspective would allow China to maintain its resistance to binding emissions targets for
the state as a whole (i.e., no mandatory emissions limitations or cuts for sovereign China),
yet at the same time make real progress toward climate change mitigation by taking steps
that would limit and soon reduce GHG pollution from the country’s affluent classes.
The important distinction between individual or intra-state equity is not new to some
Chinese scholars. For example, Pan (2003) examined the fair allocation of emissions rights
for the poor in both rich and poor countries, and Hu and Guan (2009) have proposed an
intra-state Human Development Index for China. The latter scholars concluded that China
was ‘‘three worlds in a country’’ and proposed that provinces with very high human
development levels should reduce emissions unconditionally (Hu and Guan 2009: 89–96).
Similar perspectives on individual or intra-state climate justice are not evident in China’s
diplomatic positions (Hu and Guan 2009: 96). Few countries are as preoccupied with issues
of national sovereignty as is China. For historical reasons, not least occupation by Western
powers and Japan, China is extraordinarily sensitive to even suggestions of outside med-
dling in its internal affairs. For example, at the 2009 Copenhagen conference, the question
of independent monitoring and verification of national pledges became a key issue of
disagreement. Chinese officials refused all efforts by diplomats to persuade them to agree
to outside monitoring of their voluntary pledges to restrain China’s GHG emissions.
Given its own extreme vulnerability to climate change, China has perhaps a more acute
interest than most other states in avoiding climate change. By differentiating obligations on
the basis of wealth, China could theoretically do much to mitigate climate change globally.
At the same time, it could reduce some of the most pronounced disparities in wealth that
currently threaten the country’s social cohesion. Just as importantly, by committing itself to
mandatory obligations for affluent people living in China, there would be strong moral and
political pressure applied to other countries, in particular the United States, to contribute in
much more meaningful ways toward climate stability. Governments and people in the West
could no longer claim that China is not doing its bit because millions of affluent Chinese
would in fact be taking action not yet taken in much of the developed world. For those in the
West who say to China, ‘‘you go first,’’ it would be doing just that—or, more precisely, a
proportion of its population would be doing so without undermining China’s well-founded
opposition to new legal obligations for the Chinese state (Harris 2010b).
Given the importance of justice for action on climate change, coupled with the inad-
equacy of statist perspectives to guide diplomacy toward robust and effective agreements,
China could potentially break the international deadlock and foster major action on the
problem by placing obligations to limit GHG emissions on its most affluent residents.
Which of these people (and how many of them) would be obligated, and what would be
required of them, would of course have practical significance, but the key is for them to
take action—and to be seen by people around the world to be doing so. If affluent people in
China were to do this, they would fulfill their obligations of climate justice, GHG pollution
would decrease and, very importantly, affluent people in the rest of the world—especially
the people of the developed world—would be much less able to use China as an excuse for

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not fulfilling their own obligations, and neither would their governments. By responding to
climate change in this way, China as a state would not be taking on any new obligations,
nor would it undermine its long-standing justice-based arguments against doing so.
Table 1 summarizes these arguments, contrasting some major statist perspectives with
this non-statist alternative and highlighting the implications for China.

6 Conclusion

Although China has taken major steps to improve the efficiency of its economy, thereby
limiting somewhat its contribution to climate change, its actions have not matched its
growing wealth and international stature. China has repeatedly stated that it has no intention
of taking on national obligations to limit, let alone reduce, its GHG pollution in the near
future. Instead, it continues to put the ball in the affluent countries’ court due to their
historical responsibility for causing the problem in the first place. As much as theories of
climate justice recognize the fundamental fairness in this principled stance taken by China,
there is a growing misfit between historical responsibility and current emissions: the world
cannot address climate change effectively without much more action from China. However
unjustly, the rich countries of the world see this misfit and pass the ball back to China. The
consequence is grossly inadequate action relative to the scale of the problem and the mon-
umental human suffering that is likely to come from climate change in the future.
To move the game forward, bold action is required, both in terms of policy and
diplomacy. While there is deep and genuinely reasonable disagreement about the direction
of policy change, the diplomatic dimension unambiguously cries out for a solution more in
line with the economic realities of a globalized twenty-first century world. A major change
in the way humanity interacts with nature is needed. Whether it wants it or not, China is in
a position to start this change. It can do so without undermining its long established and
repeated opposition to new obligations for developing states. A key may be in requiring
China’s most affluent individuals to take the lead. If China assumes the leadership role in
the way we believe it can, there would be a completely new game, one that recognizes the
responsibilities and capabilities of affluent people everywhere to bring humanity back
within the Earth’s ecological boundaries. If China can move beyond statism, certainly
other states can do the same. Any hope for solving the problem of climate change may
leave them little alternative.

Acknowledgments Research was fully supported by the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong
Special Administrative Region, China (General Research Fund Project No. HKIEd 340309, Principal
Investigator: Paul G. Harris). Rasmus Karlsson gratefully acknowledges support from the Hankuk Uni-
versity of Foreign Studies Research Fund of 2012.

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