The EU and China are two of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases. While the EU has played a key role in the international climate negotiations for years, China has become increasingly more engaged in recent years and will be a crucial actor in any future climate strategy. Consequently, understanding both the different climate strategies as well as the diverse approaches to global political justice of these two actors has become important. Together with adelphi, a Berlin based think tank and public policy consultancy on climate, environment and development, the University of Tübingen GLOBUS working group on climate change organised a workshop to assess and explore different pathways towards climate justice for China and the EU. The aim of the workshop was to initiate a dialogue between academia and civil society and bring together scholars from the EU and China.
Climate justice and China
After a welcome and brief introduction on the GLOBUS project by Thomas Diez, the first panel of the workshop explored different notions of climate justice in China. Liang Dong (China Foreign Affairs University) discussed the Chinese Ecological Civilization Initiative, situating it within the central-local dynamics of the political system. Chen Xiaojing (China Institute of International Studies) analysed the role of climate justice at the Chinese domestic level and linked her insights to China’s Ecological Civilization Initiative and to the EU’s approach. Subsequently, Yuka Kobayashi (SOAS University of London) presented Chinese perspectives on climate change, highlighting constructions of distributive justice and historical responsibility. Finally, Jilong Yang (University of Amsterdam) concluded the panel with a presentation on China’s engagement in global climate governance as a struggle for identity.
Global climate justice in the EU and China
The two subsequent panels addressed questions of global climate justice in the EU and China. Heike Schroeder (University of East Anglia) looked at justice claims in climate negotiations and especially considered related questions of processual justice. A specific focus was put on how the size and composition of delegations differed over time and between states and how this has affected discussions and outcomes. Leonildes Nazar (Rio de Janeiro State University/University of California at Berkeley) discussed the role of climate change in EU-Brazil and China-Brazil relations as well as questions of political economy. Stephen Minas (Peking University) compared different forms of financing climate transitions in the EU and China and their implications for a ‘just transition’. Daria Ivleva (adelphi) analysed China’s Belt and Road Initiative under the analytical frame of an emerging ‘geopolitics of decarbonisation’.
Franziskus von Lucke (University of Tübingen) started the day’s final panel. He focused on the development of justice claims in the EU’s climate strategy and showed how the EU has moved from an almost exclusive focus on top-down and binding emissions reduction targets towards a greater appreciation of difference as well as bottom-up and voluntary approaches. Anton Möller explored how trade policies could become a leverage for climate justice in the EU’s external relations. Lastly, Annika Bose Styczynski (Jindal School of Government and Public Policy) outlined different justice perceptions in China, the EU, the US and India.
Politics meets science: Civil society perspectives on EU and China in the climate regime
The aim of the second day of the workshop was to deepen the dialogue between academic researchers and civil society. In the first keynote, Lutz Weischer (Germanwatch) discussed the role of civil society in holding governments accountable and the prospects of discussing climate justice within the current climate regime. He also outlined what climate justice means for the civil society organisation Germanwatch, and discussed the relevance of justice in the Paris Agreement as well as in the climate policies of the EU and China. Susanne Dröge (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik) presented a foreign policy perspective on climate change and climate justice. She particularly focused on the role of the EU and China in the international negotiations and highlighted key difficulties in the current regime.
