A State-Society Approach to Climate Policy Diffusion for Sustainable Development in East Asia

Abstract

Increasingly, global efforts to combat climate change by reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have invoked national climate policies in the past decades. The Paris Agreement provides general guidelines for climate policy with which signatory countries are expected to comply. East Asia’s economic and political significance is rising in achieving these goals globally, but countries in the region are somewhat behind international climate norms and face criticism from global society. Moreover, despite government initiatives to achieve a sustainability transition domestically, East Asian societies are less aligned with international climate norms, prioritizing economic development over issues like climate change. As a result, governments in the region face different incentives for their policy options. This paper discusses three East Asian examples from the global norm-diffusion perspective by taking a state-society approach. It argues that the top-down efforts initiated by global society will fail without domestic societies embracing international efforts.