The Socialization Potential of the Clean Development Mechanism in EU-China and EU-Vietnam Climate Relations

Abstract

This PhD thesis studies the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) in EU-China and EU-Vietnam climate relations. More specifically, it hypothesizes that the CDM's material incentives, provided through the sale of Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) to the EU, result in the socialization of China and Vietnam in economic development-oriented climate change norms. Climate change norms, or normative sensitivities to actions that reduce, avoid or offset GHG emissions (mitigation), are understood in this thesis in a "liberal environmentalist" way. Liberal environmentalism predicates environmental protection on the maintenance of a liberal economic order.In the theoretical literature, socialization is defined as a "process by which states internalize norms originating elsewhere in the international system", while a norm is as "a standard of appropriate behavior for actors with a given identity". It is argued that the CDM has resulted in a discernible socialization effect in the case of China, and shows that material incentives also have a strong potential to induce socialization in Vietnam. As a market-based mechanism, the CDM's material incentives potentially induce a process that involves the activities of norm entrepeneurs combined with the legal institutionalization of the norm, leading, over time, to habit formation that is strongly suggestive of socialization. Four phases can be identified in this process, namely (1) initiation, (2) improvement, (3) consolidation and (4) habit formation. In China, the empirical observations match all four phases of the theoretically predicted pattern, while in Vietnam, the evidence matches the predictions of at least the first three phases, and indicate that there is a strong potential for future habit formation (phase four) as well. Methodologically, the case study method allows, first, to take the context of both cases into account, and, second, to make cross-case comparisons. The thesis fully exploits these benefits by including two chapters on the case with the largest history and additional factors (China) and a chapter that analyzes the historical and contemporary context of EU climate policy and related climate finance pathways, in addition to the two central empirical chapters on China and Vietnam. In the conclusion, several scope conditions are identified, which indicate to what other emerging economies the findings can plausibly be generalized. The central scope condition relates to the state of the political economy of a country. The higher the general levels of economic and institutional development, the higher the chances are for material incentives to lead to norm internalization. Two secondary or related scope conditions include the type of implementing agency and the extent of foreign involvement in the set-up of the policies. There is also one preliminar condition, namely the pre-existence of a basic, shared understanding of the norm.In short, the thesis contributes to both the theoretical and empirical literature on socialization and the CDM, and is very relevant to the development of climate policy in view of the importance of future global climate finance flows.status: publishe