Unpacking China’s climate policy mixes shows a disconnect between policy density and intensity in the post-Paris era

Xiaoran  Li; Shutong He; Yuen Gu; Yixian Sun

doi:10.1038/s44168-025-00233-6

Unpacking China’s climate policy mixes shows a disconnect between policy density and intensity in the post-Paris era

Xiaoran Li, Shutong He, Yuen Gu, Yixian Sun

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

As the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, China would make important contributions to the achievement of the Paris goals if it made economy-wide, strong policy interventions to combat climate change. Despite a growing number of studies on China’s climate governance, the overall landscape of China’s climate policy and its key characteristics remain underexamined. To address this knowledge gap, we developed a dataset of 358 climate-related policies adopted by China’s central government in 2016–2022 and assessed key policy mix characteristics including policy density, balance and intensity. Our findings reveal that higher policy density does not equate to stronger action. Significant variation also exists in alignment with China’s Nationally Determined Contributions, especially in high-emitting sectors. Moreover, despite a relatively balanced mix of regulatory, economic, and informational instruments, this balance does not guarantee intensity. Our study shows challenges in China’s policy coherence and calls for stronger mechanisms to integrate national goals into sectoral policies.

Original language	English
Journal	npj Climate Action
Early online date	24 Mar 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s44168-025-00233-6
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 24 Mar 2025

Bibliographical note

Publishing OA

Acknowledgements

We thank Sebastian Sewerin for his valuable comments on early versions of the intensity coding scheme. We are also grateful to Karin Ingold, Marlene Kammerer and Paula Castro for inviting us to present our work in the Policy Indices Workshop at the University of Bern in March 2024 and constructive feedback provided by the workshop participants. In addition, Mathieu Blondeel and other colleagues at VU Amsterdam provided helpful feedback on an early draft. Finally, we thank the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments, which helped strengthen the quality of this work. X.L.’s work was supported by the China Scholarship Council (Grant Number 201906360164) as well as the GeoClimRisk Project of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, funded by the International Climate Initiative (IKI) on behalf of the German Federal Foreign Office as part of the Climate Diplomacy Action Programme (CDAP), and implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. Y.G.’s work was supported by the China Scholarship Council’s studentship at the University of Bath. Y.S.’s work was supported by the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (MR/X035956/1).

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

10.1038/s44168-025-00233-6Licence: CC BY

China's National Climate Policy Database (V1)
Li, X. (Creator), He, S. (Creator), Gu, Y. (Creator) & Sun, Y. (Creator), Open Science Framework (OSF), 11 Mar 2025
DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/F8YKJ
Dataset

Cite this

@article{bba3fe19e7864f6e8bde41391269d0ec,

title = "Unpacking China{\textquoteright}s climate policy mixes shows a disconnect between policy density and intensity in the post-Paris era",

abstract = "As the world{\textquoteright}s largest greenhouse gas emitter, China would make important contributions to the achievement of the Paris goals if it made economy-wide, strong policy interventions to combat climate change. Despite a growing number of studies on China{\textquoteright}s climate governance, the overall landscape of China{\textquoteright}s climate policy and its key characteristics remain underexamined. To address this knowledge gap, we developed a dataset of 358 climate-related policies adopted by China{\textquoteright}s central government in 2016–2022 and assessed key policy mix characteristics including policy density, balance and intensity. Our findings reveal that higher policy density does not equate to stronger action. Significant variation also exists in alignment with China{\textquoteright}s Nationally Determined Contributions, especially in high-emitting sectors. Moreover, despite a relatively balanced mix of regulatory, economic, and informational instruments, this balance does not guarantee intensity. Our study shows challenges in China{\textquoteright}s policy coherence and calls for stronger mechanisms to integrate national goals into sectoral policies.",

author = "Xiaoran Li and Shutong He and Yuen Gu and Yixian Sun",

note = "Publishing OA",

year = "2025",

month = mar,

day = "24",

doi = "10.1038/s44168-025-00233-6",

language = "English",

journal = "npj Climate Action",

issn = "2731-9814",

publisher = "Springer",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Unpacking China’s climate policy mixes shows a disconnect between policy density and intensity in the post-Paris era

AU - Li, Xiaoran

AU - He, Shutong

AU - Gu, Yuen

AU - Sun, Yixian

N1 - Publishing OA

PY - 2025/3/24

Y1 - 2025/3/24

N2 - As the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, China would make important contributions to the achievement of the Paris goals if it made economy-wide, strong policy interventions to combat climate change. Despite a growing number of studies on China’s climate governance, the overall landscape of China’s climate policy and its key characteristics remain underexamined. To address this knowledge gap, we developed a dataset of 358 climate-related policies adopted by China’s central government in 2016–2022 and assessed key policy mix characteristics including policy density, balance and intensity. Our findings reveal that higher policy density does not equate to stronger action. Significant variation also exists in alignment with China’s Nationally Determined Contributions, especially in high-emitting sectors. Moreover, despite a relatively balanced mix of regulatory, economic, and informational instruments, this balance does not guarantee intensity. Our study shows challenges in China’s policy coherence and calls for stronger mechanisms to integrate national goals into sectoral policies.

AB - As the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, China would make important contributions to the achievement of the Paris goals if it made economy-wide, strong policy interventions to combat climate change. Despite a growing number of studies on China’s climate governance, the overall landscape of China’s climate policy and its key characteristics remain underexamined. To address this knowledge gap, we developed a dataset of 358 climate-related policies adopted by China’s central government in 2016–2022 and assessed key policy mix characteristics including policy density, balance and intensity. Our findings reveal that higher policy density does not equate to stronger action. Significant variation also exists in alignment with China’s Nationally Determined Contributions, especially in high-emitting sectors. Moreover, despite a relatively balanced mix of regulatory, economic, and informational instruments, this balance does not guarantee intensity. Our study shows challenges in China’s policy coherence and calls for stronger mechanisms to integrate national goals into sectoral policies.

U2 - 10.1038/s44168-025-00233-6

DO - 10.1038/s44168-025-00233-6

M3 - Article

SN - 2731-9814

JO - npj Climate Action

JF - npj Climate Action

ER -

Unpacking China’s climate policy mixes shows a disconnect between policy density and intensity in the post-Paris era

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Acknowledgements

UN SDGs

Access to Document

Fingerprint

Datasets

China's National Climate Policy Database (V1)

Cite this