Climate Change And Ghg Mitigation In China Approaches For Domestic Policy Making

China is a developing country and facing a problem of keeping a balance between social and economic development and environmental protection. China gives a priority to economic development, but at the same time also pays great attention to environmental protection. Energy is an important material base for economic development and a major source of many environmental problems as well.China produces the world’s largest emissions of greenhouse gases. China is also one of the leading and most influential actors in the group of developing countries, and thus can be characterized as a key actor for the future success of the global efforts to combat climate change.This report looks into the current climate change situation for China and how it will affect the country in the near future. Three theoretically based explanatory models were employed to identify the factors that have influence on policymaking. The three models emphasize respectively:national interests in terms of costs and benefits; domestic political bargaining; and learning through diffusion of knowledge and norms.Among the explanatory factors discussed, economic interests and the importance of economic growth seem to be most prominent in guiding the direction of China’s climate change policy. Both when the state is assumed to act as a unitary actor, and when the political bargaining between different sub-national interests are considered, economic development appears to be more important than any other factors. As in most developing countries, short term costs tend to carry more weight in decision-making than uncertain future costs. The same models were also applied for an industrialized country, Norway. A comparison shows how the various factors have different impact and importance level. The objective is not to suggest which model is more influential, but rather to explain what variables can affect policy making.