Contested energy futures, conflicted rewards? Examining low-carbon transition risks and governance dynamics in China's built environment

Abstract

China's urbanisation has caused city populations to grow rapidly, boosting continuous development and scaling up the construction industry more intensely. The building sector is thus a key area to consider for climate change mitigation efforts. This study initially seeks to explore the development of a green transition pathway for the Chinese building sector, informed by national and local low-carbon policies and strategies, with specific references to Beijing and Shanghai. Acknowledging that the barriers and impacts of these policies have not been explored in depth and in consideration of the multiplicity of stakeholder views, we then set out to collect stakeholders’ perspectives of implementation and consequential risks associated with the envisaged transition and with the policies aiming to promote this transition. These concerns are evaluated in a multiple-criteria group decision making approach. By focusing on the resulting most critical implementation barriers, we then outline five plausible socioeconomic scenarios, against which we simulate the impacts of the considered policy strategies on the low-carbon transition of the Chinese built environment as well the extent of their key possible negative consequences, by means of fuzzy cognitive maps.