This course examines the environmental consequences of China’s socio-economic transformation, and evaluates the actions taken to make China’s rise more environmentally sustainable. It identifies the scale of the country’s environmental challenge and then analyses the actors (including state and non-state), policy processes and political issues that affect environmental governance in China. More specifically, it examines China’s early attempts to regulate pollution in the 1980s and 1990s, and explains why these efforts were unable to reverse the trend towards further environmental degradation. It then examines environmental governance in the context of heightened environmental concern from the country’s leadership and general public. It shows how and why energy issues have come to the fore, and examines policies designed to improve energy efficiency and mitigate the effects of climate change. This part of the course will draw on case studies from cities in the Pearl River Delta that face a considerable climate- and water-related challenges.

Reading review notes: 30%
Mid-term essay: 20%
Final essay: 40%
Class participation: 10%