Advanced Review
The role of nongovernmental organizations in China’s climate change governance Lei Liu,1 Pu Wang2 and Tong Wu3* Edited by Karin Bäckstrand, Domain Editor, and Mike Hulme, Editor-in-Chief
Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have been a key player in international climate negotiations. In addition to being UNFCCC observers at the international level, the role of NGOs in domestic climate change governance has differed across countries due to varying political, legislative, and even cultural contexts. As the largest CO2 emitter in the world, China is engaged in the challenging process of low-carbon development, which may not be achievable through exclusive reliance on top–down management and voluntary actions by the private sector. The participation of NGOs as a civil society actor is important. However, current understanding about the role of NGOs in China’s climate change governance has been under-studied. Climate change is still a relatively new topic for China’s NGOs, and it has been difficult to differentiate the involvement of NGOs in climate change issues from their involvement in environmental issues more generally. Overall, the role NGOs play in China’s climate change governance has had four main features: government partnership with restricted political space, organization development with inadequate professional capacity, strong international financial reliance but with growing domestic support, and public advocacy with low social recognition. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. How to cite this article:
WIREs Clim Change 2017, e483. doi: 10.1002/wcc.483
INTRODUCTION s a ‘tragedy of the commons’ problem at the global level, climate change has prompted extensive stateled, private as well as hybrid governance across multiple jurisdictional, administrative and political levels since the late 1980s.1 Conventionally, states are thought to be the privileged player in climate governance.2 However, with
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*Correspondence to:
[email protected] 1
School of Public Administration, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
2
John F Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
3
School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA Conflict of interest: The authors have declared no conflicts of interest for this article.
the emergence of a more complex climate regime globally, the multidirectional interactions between state and nonstate sectors have been reshaping the form and institutionalization of climate politics in different countries.3–5 In this process, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), as lobbyists, activists, educationists, advocators, and supervisors, have increased their influence on national and international environmental policies as well as on public perceptions.6–10 NGOs have been a key player in transnational advocacy networks and international climate negotiations since the first conference of parties (COP) of the UNFCCC in 1995.11,12 Other than working internationally as UNFCCC observers or activists, the role of NGOs in domestic climate change governance has been different across countries due to varying political and legislative contexts.13,14 For example, Schipani compared the contribution of environmental
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NGOs (ENGOs) to climate change governance in Vietnam and Bolivia and found that Vietnamese ENGOs operate to further government policies by focusing directly on solving immediate challenges, while Bolivian ENGOs tend to focus on confronting the state, adopting more ambitious policy goals and emphasizing social equity and the vulnerability of certain segments of the population.14 Analyzing 26 European countries, including transitional economies with newly established electoral systems, between 1998 and 2009, Dolšak suggested that domestic NGO strength is a significant predictor of the time that it took a country to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.13 Numerous studies have examined the role of NGOs in the climate change governance of Western democracies.15–18 However, it is also instructive to look at their Eastern and Southern counterparts, where the NGO sector is less developed and where there are more sociopolitical restrictions. China, as the world’s largest one-party polity and also the largest emitter of CO2, is facing significant domestic and international pressures to make a low-carbon economic transition. In response, China committed to an ambitious Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) at COP 21 in Paris in 2015: reaching peak emissions and effecting a reduction of carbon intensity by 60-65% from the 2005 level by 2030.19 These pledges and existing achievements in energy efficiency have added momentum to global efforts at climate change mitigation. However, the pressure to make further gains in climate governance has also been building domestically. Severe air pollution over urban areas—driven in large part by fossil fuel combustion—has engendered significant public concern. In the view of much Western experience and analyses, this challenge is unlikely to be resolved by exclusive reliance on top–down management and voluntary actions by the private sector; civil society—and in particular NGOs—are indispensable to the process.20 By contributing resources, expertise and legitimacy, they can play an essential role in climate governance.21 However, as yet, the role played by NGOs in China’s climate governance has been under-studied. First, climate change is still a relatively new and abstract topic for China’s ENGOs. Additionally, it is often difficult to differentiate the behaviors and properties of NGOs when they are involved in climate change issues and when they are involved in environmental issues more generally. On many occasions, both academia and the media have treated the two as interchangeable topics, with no major differences in scientific substance, social impact, or political implications. Over a decade ago, McCargo22 characterized 2 of 16
China’s situation as a ‘state-led civil society,’ which means a ‘gray zone’ of organizations that mediate interactions between the state and the citizenry. After a decade of political reform and rapid economic development and social diversification, is this still an apt characterization, particularly with respect to the role played by NGOs in China’s efforts to tackle climate change? How can NGOs play a greater role in influencing policymaking when they themselves are not fully integrated into the political process in China or at the international level? In the following sections, ‘NGOs and Climate Change in China’ overviews the role of NGOs in climate governance and the situation of ENGOs in China. ‘The development of China’s climate change NGOs’ introduces different types of ENGOs in China and the relevant registration system. Subsequently, we review and analyze the role of Chinese NGOs in climate governance in the four sections: ‘Government partnership with restricted political space,’ ‘Organization development with inadequate professional capacity,’ ‘Strong international financial reliance with increasing domestic support,’ and ‘Public advocacy with low social recognition.’ ‘Trends and Prospects’ then extends the analysis to consider the possibilities for ENGOs to play a more important role in China’s climate governance. Finally, ‘Conclusion’ discusses the conditions of a potential sociopolitical transition to a more favorable environment for NGOs.
ENVIRONMENTAL AND CLIMATE CHANGE NGOS IN CHINA Generally, a government’s failure to act effectively on issues of social importance prompts public reaction and creates space for NGOs.23 However, how the NGO sector grows in a given country largely depends on the political setting and legal system, although over time states may also be transformed, at least in part, by NGO activities.5 Political environment influences legislative development, which in turn affects the relative strengths of the government and NGO sectors, as well as the state–NGO relationship.5,24 A number of studies have argued that NGOs are more likely to work in stable democratic countries, which impose less pressure on them.23,25,26 In a politically restrictive context such as Kazakhstan, ENGOs were found to play an increasingly limited role in environmental policymaking.27 To some extent, NGOs and the institutional environment in which they operate are interdependent.28 For example, in Bangladesh, which is a parliamentary democracy but where the sociopolitical environment has
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been disobliging to activism, the NGO sector shifted away from promoting political mobilization to the apolitical delivery of basic services such as microfinance.29–31 In Nepal, where the government and legislative frameworks are relatively weak, NGOs are very active and are perceived as providing a critical input into various processes of socioeconomic development.24 In the fledgling democracies of Eastern Europe and former Soviet Union, NGOs remain marginal political actors because of political inertia from the one-party era.13 Present in China since 1994,32 ENGOs have been among the most active NGOs in China, with the highest level of social impact.33 First, ENGOs are perceived as being less politically and culturally sensitive than NGOs associated with issues such as labor rights and HIV/AIDS control.34–36 Second, because they have a more complementary relationship with the Chinese government, ENGOs are in a good position to influence environmental decision-making and do lobbying, helping to promote a more open governance process and improve state–society relations.37–40 According to a recent survey of 80 active ENGOs in China, 71% had received support from the government.35 Since the beginning of market-oriented reforms in the late 1970s, the priority given to economic growth—which often causes or aggravates environmental problems—has created barriers for the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) in fulfilling administrative functions; this has created a space for ENGOs to contribute to environmental governance.33 Third, with the rapid development of social media and administrative reforms led by the current administration, the national government has become more responsive to public opinion, as evidenced by the release of PM2.5 data for major cities since 2012, and the new National Environmental Protection Law that allows qualified NGOs to sue the government for public environmental interests. Although little noticed in the Western media, these are major changes in China’s environmental governance, with ramifications not only for NGOs but also for civil society at large. Despite the attention given to ENGOs in the existing literature, discussions of their contributions to China’s climate governance have been relatively sparse. Richerzhagen and Scholz have argued that the contribution of Chinese NGOs in combatting climate change is ‘weak.’41 For example, Greenpeace Hong Kong regularly stages protests in the city—a Special Administrative Region exempt from many of the political and legal constraints on the mainland— to pressure the government into action on climate change, and has even criticized the chief executive as
a ‘climate fugitive.’42 In contrast, Greenpeace China, operating on the mainland, has been less active in public agitation, focusing primarily on environmental research and the dissemination of information.43 This different approach runs athwart the standard activist image of NGOs, and has helped keep the efforts of Chinese organizations below the radar. As Wang Binbin, the chief executive of the China Center for Climate Change Communication and the first observer from mainland China to attend COP, observed: ‘In their way, Chinese government, media, and NGOs have made a lot of efforts in fighting climate change but this has not been sufficiently recognized by the international community.’20,44
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA’S CLIMATE CHANGE NGOS As shown in Table 1, ENGOs in China can be divided into three categories: (1) governmentsponsored NGOs, which are not a part of civil society strictly speaking, but, similar to the situation in countries such as Sweden and Norway, they play an important role in climate governance nonetheless5; (2) grassroots NGOs, which can be further classified into several types according to their registration status; and (3) international NGOs, that is, those that have offices in multiple countries, including China. Generally speaking, government-organized NGOs have advantages in funding and policy influence, while most grassroots ENGOs have problems with funding45: 73% have less than ten staff members and 41% have less than five.35 In contrast, international ENGOs benefit from substantial financial support from abroad,46 but also face greater restrictions on what they can do. As of 2008, there were about 3289 ENGOs in mainland China, of which 1309 were government sponsored, 1890 were grassroots (including 1382 college students’ group and citizens organizations), 90 were international, and the remaining 250 were in operation in Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan.47 Another data source shows that the number of ecological, environmental, and meteorological social organizations registered at the Ministry of Civil Affairs rose from 5700 to 7041 between 2007 and 2012.44 According to the classification of Dryzek et al. based on the state’s orientation to civil society, China can been considered as an ‘Active Exclusive’ country: the state attempts to prevent the formation and impede the operation of social movements that oppose its primary political agenda, but at the same time it feels necessary to welcome at least some
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TABLE 1 | ENGOs in China Organizational Type
Registration Status
Membership
Examples
Government-organized NGOs
Social organizations established by government agencies
Mainly institutional membership-funded (with external funding), membership mainly open to organizations
All-China Environment Federation
Grassroots NGOs
Registered NGOs
Registered as social organizations or private, nonprofit work units
Membership-funded (with external funding), citizen can join as individual member or volunteers
Friends of Nature, Green Hunan
Nonprofit enterprises
Registered as business enterprises but operate as nonprofit organizations
No membership, citizen can join as volunteers
Global Village of Beijing, Institute of Environment and Development
Unregistered voluntary groups
Unregistered organizations that function as NGOs
No membership, citizen can join as volunteers
Lv Xing Tai Hang
Web-based groups
Unregistered groups that operate mainly through the internet
No membership
Green-Web, Greener Beijing
Student environmental associations
Registered with campus Youth Leagues yet function and perceived as NGOs
Membership-funded (with external funding), membership open to own university students
Sichuan University Environmental Volunteer Association
University research institutes
Affiliated with institutions of higher education but operate as NGOs
No membership
Center for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims
NGOs registered in other countries but active in China (some of them also registered in China)
No membership
World Wildlife Fund, Carbon Trust
International NGOs
Source: Adapted from Yang37 and Percival and Zhao.33
important actors into the policymaking process.5 Therefore, China has a complex NGO registration system. For ‘Grassroots NGOs,’ ‘Registered NGOs’ refer to NGOs that are registered with local or national civil affairs authorities, and can be further classified into three types: ‘Social Groups’ (voluntary groups formed by Chinese citizens in order to realize a shared objective, according to their rules and engaged in nonprofit activities48), ‘Private Nonenterprise Units’ (established by enterprises, institutions, associations or other civic entities as well as individual citizens, using nonstate assets and conducting nonprofit social service activities49), and ‘Foundations.’ ‘Registered NGOs’ are the officially and legally admitted NGOs in China. Because of tight control of NGO activities in China, especially the fact that a NGO requires dualapproval (being supervised by both the civil affairs department and the government department dealing specifically with their field), a large number of NGOs cannot officially register at civil affairs departments. 4 of 16
Instead, they register with industry and commerce administrations, operating as ‘Nonprofit enterprises.’ Compared with ‘Registered NGOs,’ ‘Nonprofit enterprises’ have stronger autonomy and independence with lesser government intervention and control. However, ‘Nonprofit enterprises’ do not receive preferential treatment in terms of taxation and other fiscal matters because they are not considered formal nonprofit organizations. ‘Unregistered voluntary groups’ and ‘Web-based groups’ can choose to be affiliated with legal NGOs, for the sake of easier operations, but they still face greater risks of running afoul the law if they are deemed to have operated beyond their legal status. According to a survey of 128 grassroots NGOs, 51% registered at civil affairs departments, 16% at industry and commerce administrations, 26% were unregistered, and 7% were affiliated with other organisations without independent legal status.50 Besides NGOs, there are other types of civil society actors that have played critical roles in
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climate governance. Two of the most important are student organizations and academic organizations. With the strengthening of political requirements in Chinese universities over the past two decades, the function of students’ organization has mainly focused on enriching campus culture, improving professional skills, and carrying out political education among students. Therefore, the main function of student environmental association has been to cultivate and improve the environmental consciousness of students, with little engagement with the government and the general public. Consequently, this means they have limited capacity in terms of social mobilization and policy influence. Differing from student organizations, academics in university research institutes have been influential in shaping public opinion through social media and other forms of public engagement, and are because of this often solicited by policymakers to lend their expertise to the decision-making process.33,40 The alternative, more traditional recourse is for academics to submit policy proposals to relevant bureaucratic organs, but this pathway tends to be highly competitive and slow, requiring as it does layer-by-layer approval by cadres. In this paper, even though we use ‘NGOs’ and ‘civil society actors’ interchangeably for the convenience of analysis, our focus is on the roles of NGOs in China’s climate governance. Although we classify ENGOs in China into the aforementioned three types, it is difficult to separately analyze their respective influences because of the absence of systematic statistics for Chinese ENGOs. In addition, although government-sponsored NGOs figure in China’s climate governance, it is hard to distinguish their role because many government-sponsored NGOs are functionally extensions of the government, and in some cases even government subsidiaries. International NGOs in China play a part mainly through their partnership with domestic NGOs instead of direct engagement with the government.51 Therefore, perforce, the bulk of the analysis of this paper is on ‘Grassroots NGOs,’ which are the most representative of Chinese NGOs in terms of the conventional definition and function of NGOs. Among Chinese ENGOs, organizations interested and involved in climate issues were few until 2007, when eight NGOs jointly initiated the ‘Chinese Civil Society’s Response to Climate Change’ project. The project, which is seen as Chinese NGOs’ first move to address climate change issues directly,40 aimed to raise public awareness on climate change and seek common positions, strategies, and actions. In the same year, the China Civil Climate Action Network (CCCAN) and the China Youth Climate
Action Network (CYCAN) were also founded. CCCAN is a nonregistered network organization funded by the Heinrich Boell Foundation, whose host organization in China is China Association for NGO Cooperation (CANGO). So far, CCCAN has 17 members.52 As part of CCCAN, CYCAN is registered as a business and emphasizes raising awareness among the young through campaigns at universities, as well as education and research support.53 According to Huang Haoming, Vice Chairman and Executive Director of CANGO, the main activities of Chinese NGOs in climate governance include: ‘Providing suggestions for climate legislations; conducting energy conservation and emissions reduction projects and publishing popular science readings; sending youths to foreign NGOs for studying and cultivating professionals on climate issues; assisting in inter-governmental negotiation; and conducting relevant public surveys.’44 Generally speaking, the primary role of Chinese NGOs in climate change mitigation is threefold: government engagement, professional and financial capacity enhancement, and the shaping of public opinion and awareness. Correspondingly, the primary problems that Chinese climate NGOs face are: restricted political space, insufficient professional capacity, shortage of funding, and weak public consciousness of climate change. These four issues are discussed below.
GOVERNMENT PARTNERSHIP WITH RESTRICTED POLITICAL SPACE Understanding China’s climate change governance requires understanding the scale and centrality of the state. On the one hand, the government is now aware of the complexity of the climate change issue and has discovered the positive effect NGOs can have on monitoring local government and industry activities, raising awareness, and promoting education about international climate change policies and experiences.54 The government–NGO partnership thus serves as a platform for policymakers to learn useful information for improving policies and management.53 The MEP has a long tradition of cooperating with NGOs. And despite its limited say in climate politics, MEP still provides an opportunity for NGOs to access the intra-governmental network of personal relations, which is extremely important in China.55 The NDRC—officially in charge of energy, climate change, and economic affairs—has consistently stressed the importance of NGOs in linking government actions with public expectations and expressed the will to foster more cooperation with NGOs.56
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CCCAN members now have established stable contacts and exchanges with Chinese climate policy representatives from NDRC after a long process of building trust.52 The China Business Council for Sustainable Development (CBCSD) has developed and released many guidelines for greenhouse gas emissions accounting, such as ‘The Calculation Method of CO2 Emission in Petrochemical Production’ (SH/T5000-2011), which was recognized by the government as a national standard.57 In addition, the Innovation Center for Energy and Transportation (iCET) has worked with the National Standardization Administration on the design of national fuel standards for the transport sector; the positive results of this collaboration have been evident over the last several years.55 In the meantime, Chinese NGOs often take part in climate negotiations in supporting roles to official policymakers. They help the government advocate for climate equity as observers, disseminate information and foster climate consciousness through publications and press conferences, organize training and school programs, and promote cooperation with other countries through civil diplomacy with foreign NGOs. On the other hand, in the government–NGO partnership, the government monitors and validates the latters’ activities to ensure that they do not undermine social and political stability41—the overriding concern for central and local governments. In this view, public campaigns, including those regarding climate change, have the potential to provoke unrest.58 Climate change abatement appears as an uncontested field for activism, especially compared with other aspects of environmental protection, particularly at the local level59; but as both a domestic and an international issue, climate change is primarily linked to crucial political and economic interests on the national level, which narrows the political space for NGOs. The concern is that granting domestic ENGOs full autonomy could generate unwanted (and perhaps unwarranted) international pressure on China,53 especially as international media attention already sensationalizes many aspects of Chinese society and politics. Reflecting the political consensus, a leading member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference remarked that NGOs should help the government produce a more realistic and positive image of China to relieve pressure at the international negotiation table.54,55 Otherwise, popular perceptions will always be embodied by images of heavy pollution and industrialization, without registering the material progress that has been made in energy efficiency and pollution control. Additionally, for an ENGO, participation in UNFCCC conferences requires official 6 of 16
approval by the government of the country where that NGO is registered. For CCCAN and CYCAN, official approval has not yet been granted, so they cannot represent themselves as official organizations in the UNFCCC (although they can take part in the conference as individual members within other officially registered NGOs from other countries).53 Furthermore, almost all relevant information and data on climate change are controlled by the government, and obstacles to access hobble the ability of NGOs to work on related issues. Such dependency on the government makes NGOs, including CCCAN, less inclined to adopt a confrontational approach. Even so, some internal partners of CCCAN believe that it is too risky for CCCAN to operate closely with the national policy.52 In summary, NGOs relieve the government of inside pressure by not pushing for stricter domestic targets or policies, as they recognize the potential conflict from condemning economic policies that, while leading to the growth of CO2 emissions, have also provided popular benefits from development. Nonetheless, through cooperation, NGOs can acquire political legitimacy and make their public campaigning more effective.53,60 International NGOs have criticized the fact that position papers for UN climate conferences signed by Chinese NGOs often echo the official position—a contrast with the traditional role played by NGOs in their own countries as gadfly organizations. But this neglects the fact that Chinese NGOs face a different set of limitations and incentives: there is a risk to their very ability to operate, as well as the positive potential to exert direct influence on policymaking. Therefore, Chinese NGOs are not yet clear on how to articulate their viewpoints in international negotiations and have so far restrained from trying to influence negotiations directly.61 Compared with international NGOs, Chinese ENGOs, especially grassroots NGOs, tend to seek technical fixes for practical problems such as passive house technologies, renewable energies and sustainable lifestyle education, rather than targeting institutional weakness.54,62 In other words, in a sensitive political context with ambiguous rules, Chinese ENGOs are always searching for an appropriate balance between political mobilization and public advocacy.63
ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT WITH INADEQUATE PROFESSIONAL CAPACITY For capacity building in issue framing, agenda setting, government lobbying, public awareness shaping and
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fund raising, Chinese NGOs have been actively engaged in civil society diplomacy through various global networks since 2002, when a small NGO delegation participated in the Johannesburg Summit.61 In a survey covering October 2003 to January 2004, Yang found that 90 of 126 (71%) NGOs had contact with foreign NGOs, with the environment being among the sectors with the highest level of transnational relations.64 In 2007, CCCAN was established to facilitate a more coordinated NGO network and provide capacity-building opportunities for domestic NGOs, including introducing Chinese NGOs to international climate negotiations and commencing work on national climate and energy policies. Between the 2007 Bali conference and 2015 Paris conference, 78 representatives from 18 NGOs had been sent by the CANGO and CCCAN to take part in UN climate conferences.65 In October 2010, at the UNFCCC Tianjin conference, more than 60 Chinese NGOs organized a multitude of activities under the slogan of ‘Green China, Race to the Future.’ In 2013, Envirofriends hosted the 3rd Low-Carbon East Asia Forum meeting in China.61 Robert Bosch Stifung from Germany sponsored the EU-China NGO Twinning Exchange program, aimed at building partnerships and cooperation between nongovernmental or nonprofit organizations and think tanks from both regions; 10 NGOs from China and Europe become 2015 ‘Climate Change Twinners.’ Dialogue with NGOs from other developing countries such as the BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, and India) nations and Africa have also started.61 In the international climate advocacy network,8 for international NGOs, partnership with Chinese NGOs can provide valuable country-specific knowledge. For Chinese NGOs—a node in this global network—transnational NGOs have helped them build up capacities by getting them connected to major events in global climate governance, organizing overseas study tours, providing training in project management and assessment, and offering assistance in using international standards in financial auditing and grant applications.34 International NGOs have more access to the process of international lawmaking in the UN’s specialized agencies, treaty bodies and programs. Issue-framing through international standards and foreign experience helps domestic Chinese NGOs’ efforts to sharpen public awareness and galvanize community interest in direct action.34 According to an expert survey, the influence of international cooperation on NGO agenda-setting in China is regarded as being higher than that of local-level cooperation.58 International NGOs also have greater knowledge than local groups about the Chinese
government’s involvement in the development of international standards, so they are in a position to assist Chinese organizations’ attempts to monitor the policymaking process and hold it accountable to the international treaties and conventions that have been signed and ratified nationally.34 It has to be noted that although Chinese ENGOs proactively establish partnership with international NGOs, most of them lack an international vision: namely, they focus on domestic or local issues. Chinese ENGOs seldom participate in international civil movements. In addition to foreign exchange, Chinese climate NGOs have made ample use of media, personal networking and influential patrons to gain more autonomy and agenda-setting power. The media has become a powerful medium for the dissemination of information about climate change, and has been used effectively in implementing public information campaigns, per the agendas of both the government and ENGOs. However, many Chinese NGOs are still in their infancy and need to improve their professional capacity.66 While there are over 7000 ENGOs in China, those that are active were estimated to be 150 at most.35 One of the biggest difficulties for Chinese climate NGOs has been the lack of knowledge and experience about climate change,57 and not enough is being done to bridge the gap between public participation and policy advocacy.67 Few NGOs are capable of monitoring industrial CO2 emissions reduction and energy efficiency improvement with a high degree of accuracy and consistency, which makes it difficult to engage with businesses.54 Many NGOs advocate the use of energy-saving facilities but there are a few if any reliable figures on the results. Capacity-building has even been difficult for CCCAN, and its current structure has been criticized for not sufficiently engaging with its many members outside of Beijing, where it is headquartered.52 Consequently, the ability of domestic NGOs to participate in climate change negotiations is still relatively weak. Most Chinese NGOs believe that their goal at the COP meetings is to monitor the negotiations and make a good case for solutions to climate change to the international community. But they are not entirely familiar with the negotiation process and do not yet have the capacity to sufficiently understand the complexity of the negotiations, as can international NGOs such as Greenpeace or WWF.68 In addition, English proficiency has also been an obstacle to working on climate change negotiations.53 There are no more than five Chinese NGOs capable of following the negotiations, and none of these are committed full-time. The COP meetings have seen the participation of nearly one hundred thousand
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delegates. Of those, over half came from civil society, representing over 1300 NGOs,69 but only a handful of them have been from China. Only nine Chinese NGOs have joined the international Climate Action Network, which has over 1100 NGO members from more than 120 countries; 187 of them are from the United States alone (http://www.climatenetwork.org/ about/members). Furthermore, a survey conducted by Hsu and Hasmath with 102 Chinese NGO representatives found that, in contrast to international NGOs, Chinese NGOs do not believe they have any significant role in producing and developing new knowledge.70 The authors concluded that the combination of the limitations of the political environment and the immaturity of the NGO sector is why Chinese NGOs have functioned differently from their counterparts worldwide.70 As stated above, Chinese NGOs have placed greater emphasis on developing relations with the government than on strengthening the NGO sector through the sharing of knowledge and information.70
STRONG INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL RELIANCE WITH INCREASING DOMESTIC SUPPORT Funding is another major—perhaps the biggest— challenge for Chinese ENGOs, the scarcity of which constrains their scope for action. Currently, funding for many grassroots NGOs’ activity comes primarily from foreign foundations or networks. For example, international NGOs and foundations provided 60% of the financial resources of Friend of Nature in 2005–2006.34 The landmark ‘Green China, Race to the Future’ campaign received financial support from the Global Campaign for Climate Action. In 2013, of the seven funders of the CCCAN, only the ASEEA was from China, contributing approximately 17% of the annual budget.52 The originally Beijing-based iCET opened two offices in the US, solely to facilitate fundraising and money transfers from American foundations.55 Annual funding from American and Canadian sources is estimated to have reached $650 million in recent years, an amount that has been increasing.51 A positive development in recent years has been that China’s rising class of economic elites have started to build their own charities, which have helped Chinese NGOs develop more rapidly, despite the obstacles of a poor regulatory framework and other social constraints.71 Increasing support from domestic organizations such as ASEEA and the Alibaba Foundation has helped fill the growing financial gap and partly allowed grassroots NGOs to reduce their dependence 8 of 16
on foreign support.72 However, so far, the contribution is still insignificant compared to international funding standards. According to statistics from ‘Research Infrastructure of China Foundations,’ out of 3345 recorded Chinese foundations, only 126 (3.8%) addressed environmental issues and only two explicitly addressed climate change.73 Private donor arrangements are a way of lessening financial constraints and acquiring greater autonomy,53,60 as calling for and accepting public donations means paying management fees to cooperate with qualified foundations (personal communication with a principal staff member of GreenHunan). Of the aforementioned 126 environmental foundations, only 44 (35%) have been sanctioned for public fundraising.73 Many ENGOs also have to pay taxes for their project fund. In addition, financial support from Chinese sources often come with conditions concerning how the money is spent, especially for staff salaries.74 This lack of financial capacity has led to a severe brain drain of skilled and well-trained staff members from the Chinese NGO community.55 In many cases, only the tenures of NGO founders and leaders remain stable. This weakness may undermine the longevity and institutional memory of organizations.
PUBLIC ADVOCACY WITH LOW SOCIAL RECOGNITION Another common focus of Chinese climate NGOs is the shaping of public opinion and the promotion of awareness on energy saving practices and low-carbon development more generally. A representative event occurred in 2011, when 40 Chinese NGOs initiated a long-term climate campaign, ‘C+ Action: Beyond Government Commitment, Beyond Climate, Beyond China,’ to mobilize companies, communities, universities and other schools, and individuals to take action, especially in terms of energy efficiency and emissions reduction. In addition, with deeper understanding of climate change, an increasing number of ENGOs have actively engaged in climate change adaptation activities. The task of climate change adaptation brings together low-carbon development and local ecological protection, so that a larger number of traditional ENGOs have been able to contribute. For example, Shanshui Nature Conservation Center (SNCC) has been working in the mountainous areas of western China to improve the capacity of local communities to adapt to climate change while reducing poverty through a series of projects, including afforestation, traditional agricultural management and water diversion. For NGOs, these activities are expected to
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promote engagement with policymakers and stimulate action on climate change issues through public pressure. For example, in 2004, six NGOs initiated the ‘26-Degree Campaign,’ which advocated that households and public buildings set their air conditioners to below 26-degree centigrade during the summer to reduce power consumption, which is mostly supplied by coal combustion pants. By 2007, the State Council took the recommendation and added an additional requirement that all air conditioners in public areas not exceed 20-degrees centigrade in winter.75 These and other productive engagements with the Chinese government have been recognized in ‘China’s Policies and Actions for Addressing Climate Change (2016)’ report published by NDRC. Notwithstanding the fact that the Chinese public has become increasingly aware of traditional environmental problems, the low interest in climate change issues within Chinese society, just like in a number of other countries,16 poses a major challenge for ENGOs. The main reason is that unlike traditional environmental problems such as air and water pollution, climate change is not seen as an urgent problem in people’s everyday lives and hence it has had difficulty attracting public interest.76 In addition, perceived scientific uncertainty on climate change may weaken people’s convictions. Even in Bangladesh, which will be one of the most heavily impacted countries from climate change, local NGO members are not fully aware of how their environment will change over the coming decades.31 Furthermore, climate change has been framed so often as a global and international issue that local politicians and citizens often cannot see that there are things that can be done at a local level.77 A survey of 35 respondents from 11 NGOs in Nigeria showed that 60% of NGO members were not aware of climate change and 63% indicated that climate change issues have not been included in their program.78 More importantly, the potential role of NGOs in fighting climate change has received far less attention and approval among the public. As an important aspect of civil society action—the so called ‘third sector’—public perception affects the potential, legitimacy, and professionalism of climate NGOs’ development. A survey conducted by Phoenix New Media showed that 45.4% of 19,594 interviewees thought the impact of NGOs on fighting climate change was limited.44 Another survey by the China Development Brief in 2009 showed that 72.3% of 3785 interviewees believed that the government should be the most important actor in combating climate change, while 74.1% thought that the government was the primary contributor to the issue; NGOs
were listed second in both surveys with only 9.7 and 10.9% respectively.40 A national telephone survey of 4169 Chinese adults conducted by the China Center for Climate Change Communication showed that only 1% of respondents thought NGOs should play the most important role in fighting climate change; the majority of respondents trusted scientific institutes, the government, and the news media more than NGOs as sources of information about climate change.79 Obviously, the public still believes that the government should and will be the dominant player in climate change governance. But, the distrust in which NGOs are held by the Chinese public differs from the situation in the Eastern European and Eurasian communist countries before the 1990s; in those conditions, citizens found it hard to trust the NGO sector because much of it was created and controlled by the government.80 Presumably, for most Chinese people, NGOs are much farther from them than the government; the smog they confront regularly represents a much greater concern than climate-changing emissions (although, of course, the two are related). Similarly, when asked about the primary challenge facing ENGOs, staff in several countries gave the same answer: mobilizing the public at home.81
TRENDS AND PROSPECTS To some extent, climate change is a failure in the joint use of the atmospheric environment among different participants in a common social-ecological system. When coping with social dilemmas on common pool resources (CPR), scholars have found that in numerous cases of small-scale CPR management, users have been able to solve the collective action problem and carry through on agreements, based on mutual trust and reciprocity.82–85 When facing larger scale CPR issues that involve more complex interactions between diverse participants and resource types, such as international and national climate governance, McGinnis and Ostrom suggest that institutional designers craft an innovative recombination of private, public, voluntary, and community-based organizations that can mimic the dynamic processes in successful small scale CPR management,86 in which polycentric governance is an indispensible principle.87 A polycentric system, or a ‘Madisonian system,’ comprises multiple, voluntarily, and cooperative decision-making centers that retain considerable autonomy from one another.88–90 After years of gridlock and indecision within global climate negotiations, real progress has begun to arrive via fragmented and multispeed efforts all over the world.90–92 This has opened up a channel for NGOs to
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take part in national climate governance as an important decentralized power. More specifically, there have been several notable features in China’s development in recent years conducive to this. First, public awareness and demand for action have increased greatly with rapid economic growth and consequent environmental degradation. Second, the Chinese government is becoming increasingly aware of the limits of diktat and the use of centralized actions as means of public administration. One of the primary goals of China’s new leadership is reform aimed at streamlining administration and delegating power. Third, globalization and the spread of new public administration ideas in academia have stimulated Chinese academics, other social actors, and the government to search for more effective and efficient means of governance. Concerning the Paris Agreement, Chinese President Xi Jinping has argued, ‘…Apart from governments, it should also encourage the business sector, and NGOs, among other social resources, to participate in international cooperation.’93 Obviously, all these changes support a more mature NGO sector in China’s climate governance. Nonetheless, further progress in several dimensions would greatly strengthen this development.
Legislation for Political Legitimacy Recognizing the positive effect NGOs can have on social governance, there is currently a tendency among local governments to foster professionally capable but still politically inactive NGOs.94 ENGOs are often primarily a means for policymakers to achieve their targets, mitigate the opposition and gain access to ideas.53 Although the NGO registration procedure has been streamlined since the first Charity Law of China took effect in September of 201695 (social organizations for philanthropy, social welfare, and social services no longer need official sponsors and can register directly at the Ministry of Civil Affairs), the political legitimacy of NGO activities remain uncertain. ENGOs can still face stringent regulation, and even forceful action like fines and jailing, on charges of compromising state security: for instance, for accusations of supplying data to unauthorized sources about environmental pollution.96 Such pressures could naturally deter ENGOs from disclosing pollution information and chivy relevant local governments on pollution treatment. Therefore, for NGOs to fully function as a watchdog of local governments’ environmental behavior, which would incidentally help the central government realize its ambitious national goals, and form a multilevel and multicenter governance system, national legislation 10 of 16
defining the rights of NGOs and oversight by the central government are necessary. There should be clear rules and safeguards for ENGO activity, removing the ambiguity and risk that pervades the conditions of their work, particularly at the local level. Also, more independence from the government—that is, less control and administrative intervention in their registration and activity—is required for NGOs to fulfill their role as effective actors in the governance process.97
Improvement of Professional Capacity In recent years, ENGOs have tried to influence social action through online media, financial donors and integration into international civil climate networks.53 However, as a relatively new topic, climate change needs ENGOs to build up and improve their expertise to engage the government and the business community more effectively, as well as to make their voices heard in the international arena.54,61,93 Government institutions have also shown a willingness to cooperate with NGOs that have well-researched and professional suggestions to provide. For example, the government is starting to look at linkages between carbon emissions and rural development more closely; NGOs that have expertise and experience on this issue, such as GEI, now have the opportunity to connect with decision-makers.55 To be able to identify such crucial issues, professional quality and insight into intra-governmental dynamics are also required.55 In addition to technical perspectives on lowcarbon development, addressing potentially sensitive topics such as China’s growing per-capita emissions and future contribution to climate change or green trade barriers requires more agenda-setting power by ENGOs,61 which needs bottom–up efforts to overcome potential political resistance by mobilizing support from higher government levels and by improving networking and campaigning skills.87 For example, NGOs may need to develop strategies for disclosing information in a way that would urge the governments to respond positively, while at the same time not aggravating them. Currently, an optimal strategy for NGOs is to prioritize survival and continued growth, while placing a premium on uninterrupted operations that allow them to exert maximum influence on policy issues. Avoiding conflict and building productive, mutually advantageous relationships with the government form the basis of this strategy.57
Diversification of Financial Sources In terms of financial resources, international and domestic expectations of an emerging class of
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philanthropists are urging prosperous Chinese companies to acknowledge their social responsibilities and support NGO activity.53 China’s increasingly wealthy business elites have also started to help Chinese NGOs develop more rapidly.71 But dependence on a few wealthy elites is far from enough to support an emerging NGO sector in such a large country. Although international NGOs still have strong incentives to ensure that their Chinese counterparts’ capacities are strengthened for future cooperation,34 as China has continued to grow in terms economic and geopolitical power, international NGOs have shifted more of their attention to less developed countries. Meanwhile, they have been also allocating funds for cooperation with government bodies and think tanks rather than with NGOs.39,53 Therefore, domestic financial support must be strengthened for the sustainable development of Chinese ENGOs. A recent, encouraging sign was that the Charity Law of China stipulated that ‘charity organizations’ registered for two years could apply for the ability to conduct public fundraising.95 Previously registered NGOs can apply to corresponding civil affairs authorities to re-classified as ‘charity organizations.’ This is could be a potentially significant step forward for Chinese NGOs to secure their financial futures. But concerns still exist over the approval of the ‘charity organization’ identity, namely that it would be a difficult process for many ENGOs. More specific and clearer rules concerning the approval of ‘charity organization’ status would remove lingering ambiguity about this registration process, namely by lowering the discretion of administering officials.
Reinforcement in Public Mobilization Without considerable collective action and innovation at the local level, even the successful implementation of economic and technical policies may not be sufficient to achieve China’s ambitious emissions mitigation targets.98 NGOs can play a vital role in fostering bottom– up emissions cutting in various small- to medium-scale governance units.17 Meng made the criticism that many Chinese NGOs do not see the links between international climate negotiation, national policy and local action, and regard the practical activities they do among communities as the ‘real’ work.14 Our review of the literature suggests the opposite: the on-theground activities of Chinese NGOs, while important, are far from enough either in making a meaningful contribution to climate change governance or gaining necessary public trust. The work of CCCAN does not sufficiently identify the correlation with other areas
such as air pollution control.52 In the climate negotiations arena, Chinese NGOs fill a role akin to a subordinate entity of the government; while they have often contributed greatly to the implementation of policies, they have contributed relatively little to the formation of climate governance. Today, most Chinese environmentalists have recognized the link between industrial pollution and climate change, but the former problem is always regarded as being more important by the public.34 This is understandable and has been verified in numerous public surveys. As Lindenberg and Steg suggest, environmental goals have to be translated to specific decision situations compatible with the goals followed by people in everyday life.76 For example, public advocacy linking CO2 emissions with smog would be more promising than only calling for low-carbon lifestyle changes. So, for ENGOs involved in this process, an optimal strategy could be to move their focus to the climate-environment nexus, in order to connect and coordinate top–down and bottom–up motivations— that is, national strategy and public demand. However, public campaigning involves the expenditure of significant time, resources, and effort. It could be that only when public engagement reaches the point that it affects their careers will policymakers be willing to take more active measures to tackle climate change, particularly at the local level. Therefore, changes in domestic politics is a prerequisite to changes in climate change policy.81,99 In addition, due to the lack of standards governing their operation, most Chinese NGOs do not regard producing and sharing knowledge as a major responsibility.70 In this sense, more detailed and specific legislations are necessary to set operational standards for NGOs and to clarify state–NGO linkages, which could bring more opportunities for NGO development and enhance their legitimacy and accountability.24
CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION Although NGOs have played a role in China’s climate change governance, they have generally been subordinate to the dominant governance processes where the state remains central.97 China as yet does not have a large space for the operations of the ‘third sector’ to push low-carbon transition from the bottom–up. The state–NGO relationship is still a type of asymmetrical cooperation without competition, as Tendler described.100 Such competition could improve the supply of public goods and avert the loss of autonomy. Therefore, compared with Western counterparts,
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Chinese NGOs are mainly lobbyists and implementers instead of activists and watchdogs because of political sensitivity—thus the absence of legislation to protect legitimate activists.101 Meanwhile, Chinese ENGOs are facing more practical problems, including insufficient professional capacity, funding deficiency and very low social recognition. More importantly, the current state–NGOs relationship in China has roots in the country’s political, legal and cultural traditions.97 So, given the strong institutional path-dependency, it is plausible that initiatives to promote a Western direction would not fit comfortably with existing norms and expectations, and might therefore not be adopted or, if adopted, be rendered ineffective.102 Nevertheless, it has been found that Chinese policy-makers tend to deal with the absorption of foreign-inspired policy ideas as if they were tinkering with institutions in flexible and selective ways, and reframing them in such a way that fits domestic traditions: a phenomenon called ‘institutional bricolage.’103,104 As a consequence, the administrative system and the role policy actors—including NGOs—play in it has changed a great deal in recent decades, making any characterization in simple terms such as ‘autocracy’ meaningless.105 These may not always be easily acknowledged and recognized as leading to full-fledged and uncompromising ‘decentralization’ or ‘democratization,’ but they do lead to substantial structural evolution over time. Therefore, as recent developments indicate, there has been increasing scope for Chinese NGOs
to contribute to climate governance, in ways both similar to their Western counterparts but also in novel directions. And, as discussed above, in recent years, Chinese NGOs have contributed to the democratization of climate change mitigation efforts. Complementing China’s legal and administrative reforms, NGOs are expected to contribute more to supervising local governments and to mobilizing public support for the effective implementation of climate change mitigation and adaptation policies. Last but not least, due to the different social, economic and cultural situation in China, easy and direct comparisons with Western countries may be misleading. In fact, Star has argued that even in countries such as Australia, the USA and the UK, the general public has become increasingly disengaged from NGOs because of the latters’ lack of success in delivering meaningful policy outcomes on climate change.18 Many ENGOs have been content to engage governments on their terms and to accept small, incremental policy change.18 This suggests that NGOs are not panaceas for climate change and the difficulties of collective action. Nonetheless, they have an important role to play in China’s climate governance by providing a quotient of institutional independence and public legitimacy. We can only hope that the progress made in recent years will continue apace, especially as China becomes a—perhaps the—leading nation in pushing for climate change mitigation and adaptation.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors wish to thank Sichuan University (skqx201605) for the funding of this paper.
FURTHER READINGS Dar F. Emerging role of NGOs in the Worlds socio-political affairs. Int J Peace Dev Stud 2015, 6:1–9. Bukenya B. From social accountability to a new social contract? The role of NGOs in protecting and empowering PLHIV in Uganda. J Dev Stud 2016,52:1162–1176. Huo W, Yang F. Learning, understanding and cooperation: European-Chinese civil society cooperation on climate change. In: By AC, Heidel K, Staphany W, eds. I Could Feel Climate Change. Climate Change and China: Civil Society Perspectives. Heidelberg: Werkstatt Ökonomie e.V. and EU-China Civil Society Forum; 2010. Hasmath R, Hsu JYJ. NGO Governance and Management in China. London: Taylor & Francis; 2015. Spires AJ. China’s Un-official Civil Society: The Development of Grassroots NGOs in an Authoritarian State. Ann Arbor: Proquest LLC; 2007. Wang P, Liu L, Wu T. A review of China's climate governance: state, market, and civil society. Climate Policy. 2017. In Press.
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