Impact of Cultural & Political Perspectives in the Management of Natural Resources

Lead: Dr Paolo Agnolucci, UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources Main Collaborator: Paul Drummond, UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources

Five Chinese cities and two provinces have implemented pilot carbon trading schemes in 2013-14, to help achieve the target of cutting CO2 intensity by 40% by 2020 and the goal of gradually establishing a nation-wide carbon market as contained in the 12th Five Year Plan. Rules across the pilots differ to allow China to experiment with different designs before considering a national scheme.

In this research we will conduct qualitative interviews with a selection of Chinese and Westerner experts to compare how conclusions on the effectiveness of the Chinese pilot schemes are affected by different cultural and political perspectives. This research complements a research project for which funding has been sought through the BA / Leverhulme Trust assessing the impact of the design features of the Chinese pilot schemes on their unfolding implementation. While this project focus on multidisciplinarity and multicultural background of the interviewed experts, the BA / Leverhulme Trust project focuses on the economic discipline and design features of the schemes.

This project will inform the design of a national ETS in China and the current debate on the restructuring of the EU ETS. As this a critical time for climate policy, our project will play an important role in fostering debate on sustainable use of our carbon sinks.