E3G

Low Carbon Zones: EU-China cooperation

By Matthew Findlay and Felix Preston

Low Carbon Zones offer a potentially transformational process for reshaping the future of Chinese development. A range of Low Carbon Zones could demonstrate the feasibility and opportunity of low carbon development, reflecting the diversity of economic models across China.

The EU has a strategic interest in helping China to decarbonise; without a low carbon China, Europe cannot deliver climate security for its citizens in the future. The question is how China and the EU could work together to catalyse and support the development and piloting of Low Carbon Zones. Cooperation would focus on four areas: institutions and governance; high tech foreign direct investment; carbon finance; and facilitating trade through harmonisation of standards.

E3G and Chatham House’s latest paper entitled looks at Low Carbon Zones with a specific reflection on the EU-China relationship, available for download above.

The paper elaborates on joint work by European and Chinese research institutes summarised in a report published by Chatham House in November 2007, “Changing Climates: Interdependencies on Energy and Climate Security for China and Europe”. Full details of this project as well as English and Chinese versions of the report can be found here