In its 2007 Fourth Assessment Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that global temperatures (according to a scenario of assumptions) could rise by between 1.1 and 6.4°C during the 21st century, leading to sea-level rise, more frequent warm spells, heat waves and heavy rainfall, and an increase in droughts, tropical cyclones and extreme high tides (IPCC, 2007). To limit the increase in global mean temperature to 2°C level, and thereby limit the extensive negative impacts of climate change, carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations in the Earth's atmosphere should be stabilised at no more than 400-450 parts per million (ppm). In 2007, the European Commission obliged itself to this 2°C target (EC, 2007). In June 2009, at their summit in L’Aquila, the G8 countries also agreed to this target, followed later by members of the Major Economies Forum, including China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa and South Korea (Rahmstorf, 2009).

Although the ‘Copenhagen Accord’ – the final document of the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the Kyoto Protocol, held in Copenhagen, Denmark in December 2009 – also stipulated this 2°C target, the conference failed to agree on a new post-Kyoto agreement for addressing climate change. Especially in Europe, it is widely believed that the main reason for this failure was that both the United States (US) and China did not come forward with a substantial climate change mitigation commitment. This raises the question of China’s role in global environmental governance. In order to understand, from the Chinese perspective, the process of negotiating a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, in this chapter we begin by analysing China's role in global environmental governance. We then discuss the most important recent proposals for a post-Kyoto climate regime as presented by different authors.

The French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique et al (CNRS/LEPII-EPE et al, 2003) compiled and contrasted different post-Kyoto approaches, such as ‘per-capita convergence’, ‘soft landing’, the ‘Brazilian proposal’ and the ‘ability to pay’. The ‘percapita convergence’ approach is seen as having advantages because it is a simple concept that allows for full emissions trading. In contrast, Russa and Criquib (2007) proposed a ‘soft-landing scheme’ allowing for a smooth transition of developing countries to green economies.