ABSTRACT
This chapter maps out how the theory of ecological modernization (EM) can be deployed to analyse China's role in reducing carbon emissions from energy sources. It deploys EM analysis of the conditions necessary for sustainable ecological protection to happen in the case of carbon reduction by applying EM. As Hajer has pointed out, a key aspect of EM is 'the fundamental assumption that economic growth and the resolution of the ecological problems can, in principle, be reconciled'. Overall EM strategies are centrally involved with the promotion of market based, globalised, competition: The capitalist logic of technological modernisation and the competition for innovation in combination with the market potential of global environmental needs: marketable technological solutions for environmental problems offer a broad spectrum of 'win-win solutions'. A key criticism of EM is that it has been based on the experience of Western economies, and thus may have limited relevance to newly industrialising nations, including, most of all, China.
