RENEWABLE ENERGY INITIATIVES AND ASSOCIATED TECHNOLOGIES IN TWO CHINESE TIER 1 CITIES MULTIPLE CASE STUDIES IN BEIJING AND SHENZHEN THROUGH THE LENS OF MULTILEVEL PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

This proposal meets the FAPESP requirement for a Research Internship Abroad - BEPE to be developed at the Fudan Development Institute, Fudan University and is related to FAPESP Process 23/01918-3, referring to the Direct Doctorate underway in the Postgraduate Program in Science and Technology Policy (Institute of Geosciences of the State University of Campinas). This project has two fronts. Front I, or the "international front", is being held in Brazil and is dedicated to examining Chinese banks' investments in coal-fired power in Indonesia and Vietnam. Front II, the "domestic front", will be carried out at the Fudan Development Institute and concerns the internship abroad to be financed through BEPE. This proposal therefore focuses on the " domestic front ", identifying, describing and analyzing initiatives by Chinese sub-national governments at the scale of two of the Tier 1 Cities, Beijing and Shenzhen, with regard to the promotion of renewable energies and associated technologies. The methodology is based on the refinement of the basic analytical model - the Multilevel Perspective (MLP) - for examining the case studies of the two cities. This study involves research activities at the three analytical levels of the MLP for the "domestic front": i) for each of the two cities, the identification, on the scale of the "niche" ("micro" level of the MLP), of initiatives to implement renewable energy and associated technologies; ii) the identification, systematization and analysis of elements that could destabilize the incumbent regimes, on the scale of the "socio-technical regimes", i.e. the meso level of the MLP, based on the survey of policies and regulations on energy, transport, climate change that stimulate this transition to renewables; and iii) identifying the elements that articulate these policies (at the meso level) with the characteristics of the "socio-technical landscape" scale, i.e. the "macro" level of the MLP (whose reference is China's commitments to the Paris Agreement - its NDCs).