40 E:CO Vol. 14 No. 2 2012 pp. 40-53

The nature of China’s climate change dilemma is well-known: Climate change is exacerbating environmental devastation in China, but expand-ing mitigation efforts would pose new challenges to continuing economic development. National environmental measures often face strong resis-tance from sub-national authorities, which are incentivized by highly stable growth and development goals. This paper applies complexity theory to China’s climate change dilemma. Key insights of complexity theory—(i) the decisive role of systemic parameter settings (rule sets or minimum specifi-cations) in shaping system behavior and (ii) the creative capacity of non-hi-erarchical organization—should encourage policy responses that reset in-centives and harness creativity beyond government. Several instances are examined where incentive-focused, non-hierarchical initiatives have been effective in promoting climate-friendly behaviors. They include voluntary energy efficiency commitments undertaken by corporations, partnerships between local governments, clean-tech firms and international specialists, and ‘local issue-bundling’ to enlist public support for climate change miti-gation.

Introduction: China’s Climate Change Dilemma‘Why’, asks Boulton in a recent edition of E:CO (Boulton & Mitleton-Kelly, 2010: 2), ‘is climate change policy of such interest for complexity thinkers’? The rea-sons she offers—the scale of the issue, its sheer complexity and its centrality to questions of economic growth and social justice—apply nowhere more than in China.

As the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, China is not only a major contributor to global warming; it is itself a country where the effects of climate change are keenly felt. According to a 2008 government white paper ‘China is one of the countries most vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change’ (State Council, 2008: 7). The paper itemizes the ‘adverse impacts’ climate change has already had on China: ‘increased instability in agricultural production’; ‘se-vere damages to crops and livestock production caused by drought and hot ex-tremes’; ‘rising frequency of animal and plant diseases’; more frequent floods

China’s Climate Change Dilemma: Policy And Management For Conditions Of ComplexityE:CO Issue Vol. 14 No. 2 2012 pp. 40-53

China’s Climate Change Dilemma: Policy And Management For Conditions Of ComplexityStephen MinasCentre for International Mental Health, University of Melbourne, AUS

Applied

41Minas

and worse droughts; and ‘sea-level rise’ which has caused ‘soil salinization and coastal erosion’ and has degraded fishery zones (State Council, 2008: 7-10).

Plainly, environmental degradation exacerbated by climate change is one of the biggest issues confronting China’s leadership. Calculating that environmental damage has cost eight to fifteen percent of GDP each year (excluding health costs), Ministry of Environmental Protection official Pan Yue has claimed that ‘China has lost almost everything it has gained since the late 1970s due to pol-lution’ (Byrnes, 2006). The OECD (2010: 205) estimated in 2007 that the ‘cost of inaction’ on climate change to China’s economy is around $100 billion annually.

So it is not surprising that the Chinese government has set ambitious targets for environmental protection, reduced national energy intensity and the greater use of clean energy (Minas, 2010: 34-36).

But top-down policies and targets have yielded limited returns. As a recent Carnegie Endowment paper put it, ‘China’s strong, centralized policy on clean and renewable energy has not translated into tangible incentives at the pro-vincial level’ (Chandler, 2008: 6). According to the Climate Group’s Wu, ‘[w]hen local growth is the dominating performance indicator [for officials], and if no mechanism holds local leaders accountable for environmental protection, na-tionals laws and regulations and policy targets would remain ineffective and unenforced’ (2010: 178).

In practice, much has relied on the presence or absence of ‘enlightened local of-ficials’ (Economy, 2004: 260). A recent study described China’s energy strategy as ‘somewhat confused and uncoordinated’ (Steinfeld, 2008: 144). According to the OECD (2010: 203-204), ‘laws are formulated in a way to let local administrations interpret them to their own advantage’.

Responding to climate change, then, is as much a problem of governance as of environmental protection. In China, the misaligned incentives of provincial and local officials have been a significant obstacle to progress. Complexity theory suggests some mechanisms for shifting these incentives and addressing China’s wider climate policy dilemma.

Complex Adaptive Systems

Complexity theory is concerned with the processes by which systems change. There are two key propositions: 1. Systemic change will be de-termined by competing ‘attractors’—forces which incentivize systemic

actors to adopt or intensify certain characteristic behaviors; 2. The responses to changed attractors within a system tend to be ‘nonlinear’—i.e. ‘a very small change in the independent variable can result in a very large—even infinite-ly large—response in the dependent variable’ (Priesmeyer, 1992: 15, 21-22). Changed attractors may result in ‘regime shift’, whereby a system can ‘internally switch between different self-reinforcing processes that dominate how the sys-

42 E:CO Vol. 14 No. 2 2012 pp. 40-53

tem functions’. ‘Resilience’ refers to the degree of pressure a system can sustain before such a shift takes place (Norberg & Cumming, 2008: 2-3).

The concept of ‘complex adaptive systems’ focuses on the ‘capacity of the system to change in response to prevailing (and anticipated, where possible) conditions by means of self-organization, learning, and reasoning’ (Norberg & Cumming, 2008: 2). Complex adaptive systems share a number of key attributes: Their com-ponents will simultaneously be members of multiple sub- and supra-systems, re-ferred to by Baskin (2007b: 60) as ‘nested networks’; the behavior of systemic ac-tors will be governed by rule sets, or system control parameters; the systems and their members are adaptive, with both the members and the rule sets changing over time; and systemic actors will self-organize ‘based on internal interaction rules and external constraints, result[ing] in more or less stable patterns, with capacity for massive change’ (Minas, 2005: 34-35). As Baskin (2007b: 60-61) puts it, ‘[i]t is the interaction of its agents, on one hand, and the conditions of its envi-ronment, on the other, that determines the behavior of any CAS’.

Self-organization is driven by feedback loops which are nonlinear and which in-teract with each other (Richardson, 2008: 14)—‘in a highly interconnected world, phenomena have many causes, some of which may not be evident’ (Baskin, 2007b: 61). Novel behavior is thereby not compelled, but rather ‘emerges as a result of the rich interaction over time of multiple component agents and of the system with its context’ (Minas, 2005: 35). Once system parameters change, systemic adaptation occurs ‘for free’ (Kauffman, in Glor, 2007: 36). Adaptation does not result in an eventual, optimal state, as in Game Theory, but is rather an ongoing ‘chain of responses without any obvious end’ (Allen et al., 2006: 2). This has clear implications for policy-making: ‘Recognizing that there is no optimal solution … pushes us to see policy as experiment, to recognize that there must be built into any policy implementation processes a way of reviewing outcomes collaboratively from a number of perspectives, of learning, of modification, of keeping policies live’ (Boulton, 2010: 35, emphases in the original).

Society And Organizations As Complex Adaptive Systems

The insights derived from complexity theory have been applied to many disciplines across the physical, biological and social sciences, and have been useful in gaining a clearer understanding of phenomena as diverse

as ‘evolution, meteorology, ecology, traffic congestion on roads, traffic conges-tion in computer networks, urban demographics, the frequency and scale of avalanches, stock prices, and the onset of financial crisis’ (Higgs, 2001: 4). Com-plexity theory has been usefully applied also in a variety of organization science contexts, such as nascent entrepreneurship (Lichtenstein et al., 2007), public health system reform (Minas, 2005), the development of research communities (Allen et al., 2006) and the tensions within multilateral institutions (Higgs, 2001). Characterizations of organizations (and societies) as complex adaptive systems

43Minas

stress the diversity of systemic actors, which are ‘loosely and often nonlinearly linked and [which] produce emergent patterns of systemic behavior’ (Meek et al., 2007: 25). Human complex systems, like their counterparts in nature, are characterized by multiple levels of organization—‘the individual, team, division-al and group level and also in a much larger web of external complex adaptive systems—their economic, social and political environments’ (Carlisle & McMil-lan, 2006: 3). The inflexible application of natural science complexity models to human organization would strain those models to breaking point. Instead of testing these models to destruction, complexity has been applied to social sys-tems as an analogical ‘way of thinking’—a conceptual lens rather than a ‘theory of everything’ (Baskin, 2007a: 112).

Complex systems theory has yielded a number of insights into the management of human organization—firms, governments and whole societies:

Minimum SpecificationsBecause ‘[m]anagers cannot control environments’, the tendency to microman-age will often be counterproductive (Carlisle & McMillan 2006: 6). The existence of ‘rigid procedures, bureaucratic regulations and hierarchical controls’ tends to ‘hamper’ innovation (Carlisle & McMillan 2006: 5). Hierarchical organizational culture tends to discourage self-organizing innovation (Glor 2007: 44). Because causation in complex systems is nonlinear, the introduction of detailed and in-flexible regulations will often produce unintended and unwelcome results. In-stead, complexity suggests that

[p]rogress towards goals that are desirable but difficult to achieve can occur through applying to the system a few simple, flexible rules, sometimes referred to as minimum specifications … Minimum specifications leave room for creativity and innovation … If minimum specifications focus on system-wide targets, they encourage generative relationships and the emergence of solutions that are relevant to local conditions (Minas, 2005: 37).

Rich InteractionsMinimum specifications allow systemic actors ‘as much scope and support as possible to self-organize into “cells” or groups and to network’ beyond conven-tional ‘silos’ (Carlisle & McMillan, 2006: 7). The development of ‘mission-driven network[s]’ is encouraged (Meek et al., 2007: 33). Such interactions hold out the prospect of ‘yield[ing] new learning relevant for innovation’ (Surie & Hazy, 2006: 13). The encouragement of localized interactions, as in the PPP case study be-low, also allows managers to experiment with new incentive settings while limit-ing ‘the consequences of mistakes or underdeveloped ideas’ (Surie & Hazy, 2006: 19).

44 E:CO Vol. 14 No. 2 2012 pp. 40-53

Self-OrganizationWhereas, in the conventional narrative, ‘“change” is the dragon slain by each heroic incoming CEO [or president], or yoked to his triumphal chariot’ (Hodge & Coronado, 2007: 3), complexity suggests that management is essentially an enabler: by altering systemic parameters and encouraging rich interactions, managers can expedite shifts to new and more desirable ‘structural attractors’ (Allen et al., 2006: 15). Complexity-aware management utilizes self-organization, rather than attempting to override it.

Emergent LeadershipFinally (and most dramatically), complexity challenges conventional manage-ment thinking by holding out the possibility that leadership is itself ‘an emergent event’, ‘in which knowledge, action preferences, and behaviors change, thereby provoking an organization to become more adaptive’ (Lichtenstein et al., 2006: 2, 4). This possibility is illustrated by Allen’s example of the emergence, in aca-demic research, of ‘clusters’ of researchers and papers which endorse particular ideas and ignore or dismiss others. The publication of a ‘single “outlying” paper’ can begin this process but cannot shape or direct it (Allen et al., 2006: 15). Simi-larly, Kelly’s account of the development of open source software concludes that innovation is driven by ‘a spectrum of attitudes, techniques and tools that pro-mote collaboration, sharing, aggregation, coordination, ad hocracy and a host of other newly enabled types of social cooperation’ (2009: 122). The implication of this perspective is that ‘leadership can occur anywhere within a social system’ (Lichtenstein et al., 2006: 4). Innovation and the setting of system parameters are not the exclusive preserve of government, as the case studies below illustrate.

Richardson suggests that the key features of complex adaptive systems ‘may be common sense to the experienced manager’ (2008: 25). Perhaps so. The role of incentives in determining behavior and the creative capacity of non-hierarchical organization are not observations unique to complexity theory. But the formal-ization of suppositions can itself be useful, as ‘a check on our intuition. Some-times it shows that our intuition is wrong’ (Barrett, 1998: 318). In any case, the complex systems perspective is arguably a ‘profoundly different way’ of concep-tualizing management and policy, one which breaks with the received wisdom of organization science (Richardson, 2008: 25).

Chinese society and complexity theory: There is an argument that Chinese soci-ety should be particularly receptive to these management insights of complex-ity theory. This argument rests on the observation that the ‘similarities between the principles of Chinese philosophy and complexity theory are deep and pro-found’ (Baskin, 2007b: 62). Baskin has identified a set of areas where complex-ity principles correspond to Chinese philosophy (Daoism & Neo-Daoism). These include a shared awareness of inter-connectedness and nonlinear causality (Baskin, 2007b: 62-64).

45Minas

Other analysts have credited to Confucius the ‘essential ideas and predictions of the science of complexity’ (Jones & Culliney, 1998: 395), while Davis argues that the Daoist notion of wuwei (translated as ‘effortless action’) holds lessons for contemporary management (2004: 55-57).

Notwithstanding the controversy over the particular meaning of wuwei (Ivan-hoe, 2007) and the concept’s obvious tension with China’s long history of cen-tralized rule, these analyses suggest that complexity-aware policy could encoun-ter a lower threshold of resistance in China than in the West, with its intellectual tradition of ‘linear causality’ (Baskin, 2007a: 112). The possible correspondence between complexity theory and ancient principles of Chinese management constitutes fertile ground for further research.

Rich interactions: Harnessing Complexity In Climate Change Policy

The following case studies hint at the enormous potential for effective, complexity-appropriate climate change initiatives in China. The initiatives described share several characteristics: Rather than prescribing detailed

rules, they involve the setting of broad, systemic incentives; the actors involved self-organise, with minimal direction from national government; leadership, or movement towards desired ends, is indeed a collaborative rather than a central-ised act; and the projects involved are (to varying degrees) localized, responding to local conditions but with the potential for expansion.

Nanjing Voluntary Energy Efficiency AgreementsBeginning with an initial phase to assess feasibility in 2005-2006, a voluntary energy efficiency programme has been developed in Nanjing. Firms entered into agreements with the Nanjing Environmental Protection Bureau (EPB) in 2008. Each committed to an energy intensity reduction target of 3-5% by 2009 on 2007 figures. This project is one of the first of its kind in mainland China and is based on the recognition that, with ‘few exceptions, implementation of top–down policies at the local level is weak’ (Eichhorst & Bongardt, 2009: 1859). Proj-ect-designers have therefore concentrated on setting incentives to encourage effective participation.

The agreements were flexible, accounting for the actual capacity of firms to ad-dress issues, as well as particular local and sectoral requirements. Firms were motivated to participate by several factors, among which improving relations with the Nanjing EPB ‘turned out to be a major driver for all of them’ (Eichhorst & Bongardt, 2009: 1863). Additionally, the agreements gave firms opportuni-ties to improve their own technical know-how, by exchanging knowledge with the public authorities on specific problems (Eichhorst & Bongardt, 2009: 1857). During the pilot phase, close ‘technical assistance’ and ‘process management’ as-sistance were provided by Dutch SenterNovem experts (Eichhorst & Bongardt, 2009: 1857). ‘International expertise and experience’ in reducing GHG emissions

46 E:CO Vol. 14 No. 2 2012 pp. 40-53

was reported as a major incentive for government in the pilot programme (Eich-horst & Bongardt, 2009: 1863). Additionally, because Nanjing has prestigious ‘Environmental Model City’ status, its government has more than the usual in-centive to achieve environmental targets.

Following the Dutch experience, each agreement focused on ‘strong process management’, with each company setting up an ‘Energy Action Team’ (with se-nior management participation) responsible for implementation, monitoring and liaising with the EPB (Eichhorst & Bongardt, 2009: 1858). The project has been supported, rather than frustrated, by the Ministry of Environmental Protec-tion, which has avoided detailed implementation guidelines and has ‘encour-aged local innovation’, even allowing for ‘informal contracts’ between the EPB and firms (Eichhorst & Bongardt, 2009: 1861).

Eichhorst and Bongardt report that the Nanjing model may be expanded to other localities if it is judged successful. In September 2008, the National Devel-opment and Reform Commission flagged the possibility of including voluntary agreements in future national energy policies. Eichhorst and Bongardt conclude that the

partnership approach of voluntary agreements showed to have the potential to overcome both the institutional and policy barriers to implementation of top–down policies by developing new spaces of communication and dialogue between EPBs (environmental protection) and state-owned industry (economic development). In this context, focusing on the management procedures for implementation was essential (Eichhorst & Bongardt, 2009: 1864).

The Nanjing case shows that effective voluntary agreements have the potential to align the incentives of environmental and economic agencies, attract firms to participate, encourage knowledge transfer from the West and design appropri-ate local solutions. The voluntary agreement model also responds to the limited reach of national command-and-control measures. As the OECD found, the Nan-jing programme ‘shows that voluntary agreements can complement national measures and create incentives for public participation’ (2010: 205).

Local Incentive Shifts—Private-Public Partnerships And ‘Issue-Bundling’In mainland China, the central government has seen its ability to control emis-sions practices reduced by the privatization of many polluting state-owned enterprises (Koehn, 2008: 56). As a consequence, sub-national government ini-tiatives have assumed greater importance. However, sub-national government agencies will often be dependant on revenues from polluting enterprises, re-ducing their willingness to take such initiatives.

Two developments have had the effect of incentivizing sub-national govern-ments to improve local energy practices. The first development resets economic

47Minas

incentives. Following China’s accession to the WTO, local governments have been empowered to solicit and authorise foreign and joint-venture investments in green technologies. Such investment creates employment and can further in-novation. For example, provincial governments have subsidized Suntech silicon photovoltaic cell factories in their localities. Governments have also been ac-tive in securing the capital and knowledge transfer necessary for localized wind turbine projects. The injection of foreign capital and technology, together with the growing ability of clean energy installations to provide employment and efficient energy, weakens government dependence on polluting installations (Koehn, 2008: 69).

The second development concerns the political pressures on sub-national gov-ernments. Concerns over public health and environmental degradation are re-sponsible for many of the thousands of protests that occur in China each year. Koehn suggests that this mounting unrest has ‘opened a new window for sub-national framing of GHG-emission mitigation’ (Koehn, 2008: 63-64). For exam-ple, officials from Liaoning province and Benxi city linked emissions mitigation with public health concerns. Citing inordinately high respiratory disease rates in industrial areas of Benxi, the officials launched a ‘green schools’ initiative and transformed the city, which previously ‘could not be seen on satellite images due to the heavy smog’, into a ‘model’ for ‘source-point pollution control and prevention’ (Koehn, 2008: 68). The motivation of avoiding local unrest is likely to grow if China’s environmental problems intensify. Importantly, the urge to act is complemented by other incentives, notably the desire to earn ‘model city’-style plaudits from provincial and national authorities. As the Benxi example shows, popular unrest can create new opportunities for policy entrepreneurs in sub-national governments to further their agenda.

In both developments, emerging attractors (WTO accession and the availability of foreign capital and expertise in the first case and intensifying health concerns in the second case) have prompted unpredictable responses: the creation of cli-mate-friendly projects. The nature and strength of such emerging attractors will vary from place to place, as will the degree of resistance to them (determined, inter alia, by the reliance of sub-national governments on revenues from pollut-ing firms).

City-To-City NetworksLocal governments have also begun to engage in a form of ad hoc sub-national diplomacy, forming associations amongst themselves to reduce GHG emissions. Two such initiatives are the Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) programme and the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40).

The CCP programme is run by the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), which was established in 1990. The CCP programme was es-tablished in 1993 and involves more than 676 local authorities from around the

48 E:CO Vol. 14 No. 2 2012 pp. 40-53

world. The total area that they cover accounts for over eight percent of global GHG emissions (Betsill & Bulkeley, 2006: 143).

CCP participants commit to five ‘milestones’: (1) Conduct a baseline emissions inventory and forecast; (2) Adopt an emissions reduction target for the forecast year; (3) Develop a Local Action Plan; (4) Implement policies and measures; and (5) Monitor and verify results. In return, participants receive ICLEI support in the form of software for monitoring GHG emissions and information regarding best practices.

There are indications that the CCP programme has value. Its United States par-ticipants reduced their GHG emissions by an average of 100,000 metric tonnes per city in 1999. Australian participants reduced emissions by 78,182 metric tonnes during 2000-2001. In both countries, GHG emissions increased on aver-age during these periods (Betsill & Bulkeley, 2006: 144). In 2007, ICLEI released a ‘local government operations protocol for the quantification and reporting of greenhouse gas inventories’ (Dodman 2009: 188).

Betsill and Bulkeley argue that the CCP programme exemplifies ‘a new form of environmental governance’, by creating ‘a new sphere of authority through which the governance of climate change is taking place and which is not bound to a particular scale’ (Betsill & Bulkeley, 2006: 144, 151). Certainly, in some senses, the CCP programme challenges the traditional state-centric model of organiza-tion. CCP bypasses states in an issue area of national concern. Further, by creat-ing linkages across national borders and establishing regional secretariats, ICLEI could be depicted as usurping the national government prerogative of conduct-ing external affairs. Rather than perceiving a threat, however, national govern-ments should look on the activities of ICLEI and its peers as necessary comple-ments to their own efforts, adding a ‘crucial layer to the complexity of global climate governance’ (Pattberg & Stripple, 2008: 379). Self-organizing public net-works have stepped into the breach left by inadequate national leadership. By their very existence, they demonstrate that if the old ways of command-and-control management worked, they would have worked by now.

Currently, no Chinese municipality participates in the CCP programme. CCP par-ticipation has the potential to augment sub-national government initiatives of the kind described above. Additionally, there is scope for Chinese municipalities to create their own networks, if political considerations preclude involvement in the CCP.

The C40 was formed in 2006 as a partnership between the Large Cities Climate Leadership Group and the Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI). The CCI is pledged to provide the C40 cities with emission mitigation ‘solutions’, including: ‘Pooling the buying power of cities’ (to lower the price of energy saving products); ‘Mobi-lizing expert assistance to help cities develop and implement programmes’; and ‘Creat[ing] and deploy[ing] common measurement tools so that cities can es-

49Minas

tablish a baseline on their greenhouse gas emissions, track reductions and share best practice’. The C40 has pooled the ‘climate change action plans’ of its partici-pating cities, which include Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong (which hosted the latest C40 workshop, in November 2010).

The Future: Climate Change Policy For Complex Adaptive Systems

The application of complex systems theory suggests what some of the con-tours of China’s solution to its climate change dilemma will be. Complexity also suggests what the solution will not be.

The solution will not be solely to introduce new regulations, for China already has ‘some of the most advanced laws’ on renewables, clean production, environ-mental impact assessment and pollution control (as Ministry of Environmental Protection vice minister Pan Yue says: ‘In theory, we have solved the problems. Now, the challenge is to make this compulsory’) (Warburton & Horn, 2007: 51).

Nor is more rigorous enforcement, on its own, the appropriate solution. Such is the strength, and stability, of local economic growth incentives that the adver-sarial enforcement of national regulations is unlikely to succeed (and not with-out incurring prohibitive costs): ‘If resistance is seen as the reason [for thwarted change] then the solution is to battle against and to overcome resistance, wher-ever it is to be found. However, in [complex adaptive systems], behavior follows attractors in the system’ (Minas, 2005: 37).

Additionally, complicated (and perhaps competing) regulations can have bane-ful consequences: the ‘[n]umerous experiments, competing standards, and al-ternative microlevel approaches’ adopted in China in recent years have, accord-ing to Steinfeld, compromised the ‘internalization of the externalities associated with national energy choices’ (2008: 145). ‘Complexity thinking’, according to Boulton, ‘suggests this uncertainty [of consequences] is the norm rather than an aberration in difficult circumstances’ (Boulton, 2010: 35).

Policy solutions, as the above case studies suggest, will involve interventions to create, identify and strengthen incentives that attract local governments, firms and civil society toward climate-friendly behavior. Such interventions should en-courage the creativity of systemic actors (in the form of, for example, non-hierar-chical networks and Corporate Social Responsibility) and should allow for local variation. Policy-makers should be flexible in their initiatives and be prepared to respond to inherently unpredictable outcomes, both desirable and malign.

Major trends augur well for the development of complexity-appropriate climate change policy. Intensive technology transfer and internal innovation have re-sulted in the development of substantial clean energy industries in China. It is now possible to speculate that China may become a market leader in energy efficiency standards:

50 E:CO Vol. 14 No. 2 2012 pp. 40-53

In setting and enforcing tough energy-efficiency standards for consumer appliances and vehicles, the government leaves foreign producers little choice but to comply and innovate. Similarly, to the extent that domestic producers are forced to meet these standards, they develop core competencies in the design, development, and production of energy-efficient products, competencies for which global markets will only grow as energy constraints become more binding on all nations in the future (Steinfeld, 2008: 145-46).

A complementary development has been the rapid and impressive upgrading of China’s scientific and diplomatic personnel involved in climate change. Poli-cy-makers now commonly recognise that, in the long-term, mitigating climate change and continuing economic growth are not imperatives pointing in op-posite directions, but are two sides of China’s developmental coin (Yu, 2008: 88).

These developments have made the economic incentives favouring further clean energy development stronger, with richer creativity within the system on which to draw. This suggests that complexity-aware policy is becoming not only more appropriate, but also easier to do.

Conclusion

The lesson of complex systems theory is that system behavior changes when incentives (attractors) shift, with innovation often emerging from surprising places. In climate change policy, the task of the policy-maker

is to devise a set of minimum specifications or rule sets that foster system con-nectedness and allow for the promise of non-hierarchical creativity to be real-ized. Innovations will emerge from the interactions of national and sub-national governments, businesses, epistemic communities and civil society.

The examples of voluntary energy efficiency agreements, local issue-bundling, public-private partnerships and city-to-city networks should encourage policy-makers to apply a deft, but light, touch to the climate change dilemma. In each case, creativity beyond government was harnessed—the expertise of foreign advisers, the know-how of local innovators, the pooled experience of civil soci-eties and non-government organizations and the outrage of citizens protesting health problems. A continuing challenge is how to propagate or scale up these innovations so that they have national and supra-national impact.

It is a challenge that complexity theory can help to meet. As Boulton recently put it, ‘[c]omplexity thinking emphasizes the impossibility of separating out economic from other considerations’ (2010: 36). Policy-makers charged with re-sponding to climate change—in China and elsewhere—should bear this reality firmly in mind.

51Minas

AcknowledgementThis paper was originally presented to the Professional Association for China’s Environment in Kunming, China, 14 July 2009. I am grateful to conference par-ticipants as well as to the reviewers for their helpful comments.

ReferencesAllen, P., Strathern, M. and Baldwin, J. (2006). “Evolutionary drive: New understandings

of change in socio-economic systems,” Emergence: Complexity & Organization, ISSN 1521-3250, 8(2): 2-19.

Barrett, S. (1998). “On the theory and diplomacy of environmental treaty-making,” Envi-ronmental and Resource Economics, ISSN 0924-6460, 11(3-4): 318.

Baskin, K. (2007a). “A review of ‘Complexity in World Politics: Concepts and Methods of a New Paradigm,’” Emergence: Complexity & Organization, ISSN 1521-3250, 9(3): 112-13.

Baskin, K. (2007b). “Ever the twain shall meet,” China Management Studies, ISSN 1750-614X, 1(1): 57-68.

Bernstein, S, Betsill, M., Hoffman, M. and Paterson, M. (2010). “A tale of two Copenha-gens: Carbon markets and climate governance,” Millennium: Journal of International Studies, ISSN 0305-8298, 39(1): 161-173.

Betsill, M., and Bulkeley, H. (2006). “Cities and the multilevel governance of global climate change,” Global Governance, ISSN 1075-2846, 12(2): 141-59.

Boulton, J. (2010). “Complexity theory and implications for policy development,” Emer-gence: Complexity & Organization, ISSN 1521-3250, 12(2): 31-40.

Boulton, J. and Mitleton-Kelly, E. (2010). “Editorial: Policy and climate change,” Emer-gence: Complexity & Organization, ISSN 1521-3250, 12(2): 1-6.

Byrnes, S. (2006). “Person of the Year: The man making China green,” New Statesman, ISSN 0952-102X, 18 December, http://www.newstatesman.com/200612180028.

Carlisle, Y. and McMillan, E. (2006). “Innovation in organizations from a complex adap-tive systems perspective,” Emergence: Complexity & Organization, ISSN 1521-3250, 8(1): 2-9.

Chandler, W. (2008). “Breaking the suicide pact: US-China cooperation on climate change,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, http://www.carnegieendow-ment.org/files/pb57_chandler_final2.pdf.

Davis, D. (2004). “The Tao of leadership in virtual teams,” Organizational Dynamics, ISSN 0090-2616, 33(1): 47-62.

Dodman, D. (2009). “Blaming cities for climate change? An analysis of urban green-house gas emissions inventories,” Environment and Urbanization, ISSN 0956-2478, 21 185-201.

52 E:CO Vol. 14 No. 2 2012 pp. 40-53

Economy, E. (2004). The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenges to China’s Future, ISBN 9780801442209.

Eichhorst, U. and Bongardt, D. (2009). “Towards cooperative policy approaches in China: Drivers for voluntary agreements on industrial energy efficiency in Nanjing,” Energy Policy, ISSN 0301-4215, 37: 1855-65.

Glor, E. (2007). “Assessing organizational capacity to adapt,” Emergence: Complexity & Organization, ISSN 1521-3250, 9(3): 33-46.

Higgs, D. (2001). “APEC as a complex adaptive system: Insights on the problem of mul-tilateralism versus bilateralism from a new science,” http://www.apec.org.au/docs/higgs.pdf.

Hodge, B. and Coronado, G. (2007). “Understanding change in organizations in a far-from-equilibrium world,” Emergence: Complexity & Organization, ISSN 1521-3250, 9(3): 3-15.

Ivanhoe, P. (2007). The paradox of wuwei?” Journal of Chinese Philosophy, ISSN 0301-8121, 34(2): 277-287.

Jones, D. and Culliney, J. (1998). “Confucian order at the edge of chaos: The science of complexity and ancient wisdom,” Zygon, ISSN 0591-2385, 33(3): 395-404.

Kelly, K. (2009). “The new socialism: Global collectivist society is coming online,” Wired, ISSN 1059-1028, 7: 120-25, http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/maga-zine/17-06/nep_newsocialism?currentPage=all.

Koehn, P. (2008). “Underneath Kyoto: Emerging sub-national government initiatives and incipient issue-bundling opportunities in China and the United States,” Global Environmental Politics, ISSN 1526-3800, 8(1): 53-77.

Lichtenstein, B., Carter, N.M., Dooley, K.J. and Gartner, W.B. (2007). “Complexity dynam-ics of nascent entrepreneurship,” Journal of Business Venturing, ISSN 0883-9026, 22: 236-61.

Meek, J., De Ladurantey, J. and Newell, W. (2007). “Complex systems, governance and policy administration consequences,” Emergence: Complexity & Organization, ISSN 1521-3250, 9(1-2): 24-36.

Minas, H. (2005). “Leadership for change in complex systems,” Australasian Psychiatry, ISSN 1039-8562, 13(1): 33-39.

Minas, S. (2010) “Clean energy development and China’s climate change bargaining position: Industry policy, innovation and business power,” World Outlook, ISSN 1006-1568, http://en.cnki.com.cn/Article_en/CJFDTotal-GJZW201002018.htm.

Norberg, J. and Cumming, G. (2008). “Introduction,” in J. Norberg and G. Cumming (eds.), Complexity Theory for a Sustainable Future, ISBN 9780231134606, pp. 1-7.

OECD (2010). Cities and Climate Change, ISBN 9789264063662.

53Minas

Pattberg, P. and Stripple, J. (2008). “Beyond the public and private divide: Remapping transnational climate governance in the 21st century,” International Environmental Agreements, ISSN 1567-9764, 8(4): 367-88.

Priesmeyer, R. (1992). Organizations and Chaos: Defining the Methods of Nonlinear Man-agement, ISBN 9780899306308.

Richardson, K. (2008). “Managing complex organizations: Complexity thinking and the science and art of management,” Emergence: Complexity & Organization, ISSN 1521-3250, 10(2): 13-26.

State Council of the People’s Republic of China Information Office (2008). “China’s poli-cies and actions for addressing climate change,” http://english.gov.cn/2008-10/29/content_1134544.htm.

Steinfeld, E. (2008). “Energy policy,” in S. Yusuf and T. Saich (eds.), China Urbanizes: Con-sequences, Strategies and Policies, ISBN 9780821372111, pp. 125-156.

Surie, G. and Hazy, J. (2006). “Generative leadership: Nurturing innovation in complex systems,” Emergence: Complexity & Organization, ISSN 1521-3250, 8(4): 13-26.

Warburton, J. and Horn, L. (2007). “China’s environmental crisis: What does it mean for development?” Development, ISSN 1011-6370, 50(3): 48-56.

Wu, C. (2010). “Review: Politics of China’s environmental protection: Problems and progress,” Environmental Health Perspectives, ISSN 0091-6765, 118(4): 178.

Yu, H. (2008). Global Warming and China’s Environmental Diplomacy, ISBN 9781604560169.

Stephen Minas holds a Master of Science in International Relations from the Lon-don School of Economics as well as a Bachelor of Arts with Honours and a Bachelor of Laws with Honours from the University of Melbourne. Minas is an honorary fel-low at the Centre for International Mental Health, University of Melbourne. Minas has worked on climate change matters as a staffer in the Australian Government. Research interests include Chinese law and policy, the political economy of climate change and public sector management.

Copyright of Emergence: Complexity & Organization is the property of Institute for the Study of Coherence &

Emergence and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the

copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for

individual use.