Climate Change and Industrial Technology Transfer. A Study of Chinese Conditions

Sammanfattning: Motivated by concerns about anthropogenic climate change, this thesis contributes to the better appreciation of mechanisms that would allow actors in China, foreign as well as Chinese, to exert a positive influence on the country's industrial technology status. China is the world's second largest emitter of greenhouse gases - the lions' share of which emanates from industrial and electricity production. These emissions could be reduced through the promotion of environmentally sound technologies in industry. Empirically oriented studies performed within this doctoral project explore the incentives and the field of actors that influence industrial climate performance in China. Industrial actors as well as the policy-making community and the administrative bureaucracy are included, and focus is put on the case of the carbon-dioxide intensive sector of Chinese cement production. The aim is to better understand the "technology impasse" that obstructs the diffusion of climate-friendly industrial technologies in China. Along with registering the need to recognise the institutions, explicit as well as implicit, of China's harmony-fettered system of authority and decision making, these studies lead to the conclusion that appreciation and analyses of mutual perceptional differences between key actors constitute a fundamental crux if real advances towards the aim are to be made. This is important, not least in the light of the large numbers of international actors that China attracts. These include researchers, non-governmental organisations and state agencies engaged in multi- or bilateral co-operation, as well as private corporations and enterprises.