The Role of Local Leaders in China's Low-Carbon Transition - with Weila Gong

Today's episode turns to the topic of cities, and specifically the role of local officials and local bureaucracy in China's low-carbon transition. Local officials have tended to prioritize economic goals above all, even as the central government signals the importance of environmental and low-carbon policy -- including recently in a State Council decision establishing 14 indicators tying official promotion directly to progress on carbon emissions and low-carbon policy goals.

This week we are joined by Weila Gong, who is nonresident scholar with the University of California-San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy's 21st Century China Center. She has over ten years of experience working on climate and environmental politics and policy with a focus on China. She received her PhD in Political Science from the Technical University of Munich's School of Governance and has held postdoctoral fellowships at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. She was recently a climate policy fellow at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.

Weila Gong recently published a new book, Implementing a Low-Carbon Future: Climate Leadership in Chinese Cities, which draws over one hundred interviews in China and especially within four low-carbon city pilots. Her research seeks to open the "black box" of subnational climate policymaking, and why some cities are more successful than others at initiating and sustaining low-carbon policy action.

For further reading:

Weila Gong, Implementing a Low-Carbon Future: ​Climate Leadership in Chinese Cities, Oxford, UK: ​Oxford University Press, November 2025, at https://www.weilagong.com/book.html.