A gigante China: o Estado pária que hoje é elemento chave para o sucesso do combate às mudanças climáticas

Abstract

For more than a decade, China has been the state that emits the most greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. For this reason, in order to prevent the worsening of climate change, it is essential to understand the domestic and international context of this actor in this matter. Accordingly, This paper will contextualize climate change in the field of international relations and proposes the neoliberal theory as a basis for analysis and explanation of the adaptation of China's stance and actions on this issue in the period between 1998 and 2020. The energy mix, a sector that has already accounted for 89% of the country's emissions, is key to meeting the goals set by the scientific community regarding global emissions, and through the analysis of its change in the selected period, it is possible to understand how the Chinese government has adapted to climate change. International constraints and incentives, together with domestic commitments and conditions, appear as fundamental to the analysis of this process and to embase possible predictions regarding China's performance in the context of climate change, and for this reason are central to the argumentation of this article.