Titans of the Climate: Explaining Policy Process in the United States and China

by Kelly Sims Gallagher, Xiaowei Xuan, John P. Holdren (Foreword)

How the planet's two largest greenhouse gas emitters navigate climate policy.

The United States and China together account for a disproportionate 45 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. In 2014, then-President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced complementary efforts to limit emissions, paving the way for the Paris Agreement. And yet, with President Trump's planned withdrawal from the Paris accords and Xi's consolidation of power—as well as mutual mistrust fueled by misunderstanding—the climate future is uncertain. In Titans of the Climate, Kelly Sims Gallagher and Xiaowei Xuan examine how the planet's two largest greenhouse gas emitters develop and implement climate policy. Through dispassionate analysis, the authors aim to help readers understand the challenges, constraints, and opportunities in each country.

Gallagher—a former U.S. climate policymaker—and Xuan—a member of a Chinese policy think tank—describe the specific drivers—political, economic, and social—of climate policies in both countries and map the differences between policy outcomes. They characterize the U.S. approach as “deliberative incrementalism”; the Chinese, meanwhile, engage in “strategic pragmatism.” Comparing the policy processes of the two countries, Gallagher and Xuan make the case that if each country understands more about the other's goals and constraints, climate policy cooperation is more likely to succeed.

Genres: Nonfiction, Environment

248 pages, Hardcover

Published December 11, 2018

About the author

Kelly Sims Gallagher is Professor of Energy and Environmental Policy at Tufts University's Fletcher School. From 2014 to 2015 she served as Senior Policy Adviser in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and in the U.S. State Department's Senior Envoy for Climate Change Office. She is the author of China Shifts Gears and The Globalization of Clean Energy Technology, both published by the MIT Press.

Reviews

[Matthew Keck · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book takes certain political views for granted regarding climate change and states some generic left-wing talking points that describe broad, modern political discourse. That was somewhat frustrating because the helpful/illuminating parts of this book were very helpful.

The graphs/charts and commentary that describe Chinese policy development and implementation are amazing. This isn't covered often enough in the China/US commentary circles and it shapes China's policy making incentive structure. This is absolutely fundamental to understanding China's government. That's the main appeal of this book - it just succumbs to generic pundit-adjacent commentary at times when it wades from technical content and it gets fairly repetitive even though the core of the book is relatively short.

Overall, glad I checked this out!