Strongly pushed by energy-security, peak-oil, growing energy demand and climate change, China is increasing bio-energy production and consumption. China is one of the leading countries in small wind, hydropower, solar thermal and biogas applications. It has a long history of small-scale bioenergy production, and ranks third in the list of world’s largest bio-ethanol producers. With the coming into effect of China’s renewable energy law in 2006, renewable energy policy obtained an overarching framework. Bioenergy development here has become a priority of the government agenda.

In parallel to the new renewable energy law, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) came into effect and has already been largely applied in China. Among the Asian-Pacific countries, which make 77% of worldwide CDM projects, China accounts for 49% of projects, with renewable energy (among which bio-energy) taking a prominent place. EU countries have become the major partner for CER trading.

This collaboration will exchange knowledge about as well as conduct joint research on changes in governance processes of renewable energy after the coming into effect of the renewable energy law and the CDM. These two new instruments influence multi-level renewable energy governance in different ways. Whereas the renewable energy law corresponds to a classical approach of national law implementation down to the local level, the CDM follows a different approach of multi-level governance by directly addressing, after the project approval by a national auditing agency, the local level. The aim of the collaboration is to compare these two instruments in their impact on multi-level governance and assess potential synergies in their implementation in China.

Name of Principal Investigator (Europe): Prof. Dr. Arthur P.J. Mol, Wageningen University, Department of Social Sciences, Environmental Policy Group,

Name of Principal Investigator (CASS): Dr. Tu Qin, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Economic Development Group