『Abstract
From the beginning, the statist frame of the Kyoto Protocol has
invited a focus on national carbon budgets and piecemeal mitigation
within rich countries. Despite the Clean Development Mechanism
and other efforts to diffuse low carbon technologies to developing
countries, China has over the last decades continued to construct
hundreds of new thermal coal power plants leading not only to
skyrocketing emissions in the present but also to long-term carbon
lock-in. In light of this, China is likely to continue to put
strong upward pressure on global emissions for many decades to
come. Ignoring the seriousness of this situation, many rich countries
have persisted to seek marginal improvements to intermittent low-energy
sources such as wind power rather than taking the lead in developing
breakthrough baseload technologies such as nuclear fusion. This
paper argues that only such high-energy technologies, if made
significantly cheaper than any fossil alternatives, will be capable
of breaking the current carbon lock-in process in China and other
developing countries.
Keywords: Carbon lock-in; Climate policy; Climate justice』
1. Introduction
2. Aim
3. China's industrial rise
4. Possible rebound effects
5. Meanwhile in the developed world
6. The radical critique and the paradox of urgency
7. Connecting the dots
Acknowledgments
References