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Abstract
The Chinese performance in climate change is considered by some to have fallen short of the standard of performances of the world’s other large developing countries. This paper presents a ranking methodology and a case study to evaluate Chinese performance in climate change. Eight economic, social and environment indicators were collected for China and an additional 17 for the largest greenhouse gas (GHG) emitters in non‐Annex I countries. An MS‐Excel spreadsheet was developed to manipulate these indicators and to calculate indices. A comparative analysis of the 18 countries was undertaken to highlight and compare the Chinese performance. This paper concludes that China’s climate change performance is not as bad as some agencies have suggested: in fact, it has improved over the past few years. In order to perform better, however, China needs to reduce its growth rate of GHG emissions, reduce fossil fuel consumption, promote energy efficiency, enhance education, and facilitate human development in fighting climate change.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Dr Xiaojiang Yu, Department of Geography, Hong Kong Baptist University for his invitation and encouragement. Acknowledgements are also due to the three anonymous referees of this paper and Dr Michael Brett‐Crowther, the editor of the International Journal of Environmental Studies, for their comments. The viewpoints expressed in this article are solely those of the authors.