CCICED and Its Uniqueness for Both China and the World

Abstract

CCICED’s incubation began with an influential group of senior Chinese governmental officials plus some international development specialists. Mr. Qu Geping, who had attended the 1972 Stockholm Environment Conference and who played a major role in establishing environmental protection within China afterwards, was instrumental in bringing forward the concept.

CCICED’s incubation began with an influential group of senior Chinese governmental officials plus some international development specialists. Mr. Qu Geping, who had attended the 1972 Stockholm Environment Conference and who played a major role in establishing environmental protection within China afterwards, was instrumental in bringing forward the concept.¹ His insights were important and prescient. At the first CCICED AGM in 1992, Qu Geping noted that in spite of significant environmental investments and some legislation for environmental protection, China was facing considerable difficulties, including (1) deterioration of natural ecological conditions; (2) arduous tasks in air and water pollution control; (3) difficulty in replacing coal as the main energy source; (4) unreasonable price structure leading to waste of resources; and (5) backwardness of science and technology.

He spelled out the challenge of achieving both economic development and environmental protection by the turn of the new century. Also, he addressed the need for “ecological evolution” towards a better relationship between people and nature. These points were important in terms of the selection of CCICED’s initial themes. In addition, Qu Geping noted, “China’s progress in environmental protection will also contribute to the cause of environmental protection in the world as a whole.”

The actual proposal for establishing CCICED was suggested at the International Conference on the Integration of Economic Development and Environment in China (Beijing, October 1990). Mr. Martin Lees played a significant role in selling the idea to donors, especially the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Norway, and some other donor countries. Initial seed funds came from a few international foundations and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). That it should be a high-level body, operating with a high level of relevant scientific expertise but also with political and policy figures, plus CEOs of enterprises and other organizations, set the composition of members. Such a mix of CCICED members has continued throughout the entire three decades since.

The first Chair, Mr. Song Jian, State Councillor and Director of the State S&T Commission, and the International Executive Vice-Chair, Mr. Marcel Massé, President of CIDA, were well aware of the potential value of CCICED. Song Jian called it a “pioneering initiative [and] a lofty and humanitarian objective.” He noted, “the Council can push for a coordinated economic and environmental protection policy for China during its period of economic takeoff, thus making a positive contribution to the global issue.” He also described CCICED as a “think tank” with initial in-depth studies covering five or six thematic working groups, each with a five-year mandate.² These initial terms for working groups were extended into the second five-year phase and additional task forces were established.

CCICED operates under a Charter negotiated at the start of the first phase and periodically updated with inputs from key partners.³ Ultimate approval of Charter revisions lies with China’s State Council and CCICED members’ formal agreement.

High-Level CCICED Leadership

The first AGM took place in Beijing just 2 months before the June 1992 Rio Earth Summit. Vice Premier Wu Xueqian spoke at the first CCICED AGM Opening Ceremony, and Premier Li Peng held a lengthy meeting with members. This first AGM set a pattern that has lasted throughout the entire three decades of CCICED with some adjustments. For more than 20 years, CCICED members met annually with the Premier of China each year. From 1997 until the present time, the Chair of CCICED has been China’s Executive Vice Premier. CCICED recommendations have been submitted to the State Council of China each year and reviewed at high levels.

Table 2.1 demonstrates the continuity of high-level leadership on both the Chinese and international sides of CCICED. Six Vice Premier-level individuals have served as CCICED Chairpersons (and two of these, Mr. Wen Jiabao and Mr. Li Keqiang, went on to become Premier). Eight ministerial-level (or equivalent) individuals have served as CCICED Chinese Executive Vice Chairs, and seven Canadian CIDA Presidents and three Canadian Ministers have served as International Vice Chairs. Council Members have met with at least four Premiers on CCICED matters. Premier Wen Jiabao met for 15 years during the time he served as Vice Premier and as Premier.

Table 2.1 CCICED leadership: Chairs, executive vice chairs, and secretary-generals

Organization and Management

CCICED’s Charter lays out basic organization and responsibilities (see Box 1.1 reference.) There are two Executive Vice Chairs, the Minister of Ecology and Environment (MEE) and currently the Minister of Climate Change and Environment from Canada. There are several other Chinese and International Vice Chairs. Together these individuals form a Bureau that provides high-level operational oversight for the planning and implementation of CCICED’s activities.

CCICED’s Secretariat operates from its headquarters office in Beijing.⁴ The CCICED Secretary-General is a Vice Minister administrator within the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE, formerly MEP, SEPA, and NEPA), and Deputy Secretary-General(s) and Assistant Secretary-Generals are appointed as necessary.

An international support unit (SISO) linked to the CCICED Secretariat was established in Canada.⁵ This office provided services to CCICED international members, partners, and research projects.

Since 2002, a Chinese Chief Advisor and an International Chief Advisor have provided inputs to the Secretary-General and Secretariat, Council Members, and others, including CCICED partners and research teams. The Chief Advisors, who also are CCICED members, become involved in most aspects of CCICED efforts, attend CCICED Bureau meetings, and produce key documents such as Issues Papers and draft policy recommendations. They also review the substance of work plans and research reports and often make presentations on behalf of CCICED. They are supported in their work by a small team of E&D experts from both Chinese and international sides. Individuals serving as Chinese Chief Advisors include Mr. Sun Honglie (2002–2004), Mr. Shen Guofang (2005–2016), and Mr. Liu Shijin (2017 to present); International Chief Advisors have included Mr. Arthur Hanson (2002–2019) and Mr. Scott Vaughan (2019 to present).

A very important point is that, while CCICED is linked to the Ministry of Ecology and Environment for the administration of its activities, it operates under the direction of the State Council at the level of the Executive Vice Premier. The CCICED recommendations submitted each year to the State Council are circulated widely to the relevant entities of the State Council and can reach the highest levels of government.

Funding Partners

Funding for CCICED is provided by a range of partners, with China now contributing the largest amount of any donor. While amounts vary somewhat year by year, annual funding levels currently total about USD 5,000,000 or more. In addition, there is considerable in-kind support. Canada has been the lead donor throughout the entire period of CCICED’s existence, and some other donors, such as Norway and Sweden, have been present throughout. Countries such as Germany, France, Australia, Japan, Italy, and Switzerland, and regional bodies such as the European Union have been donors, often on a long-term basis with periodic renewal. Some international and Chinese donors are corporate, and others are non-governmental international organizations; United Nations organizations such as the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), and UNDP; and other international bodies, such as the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Partners frequently provide services and other major in-kind contributions of high value to CCICED activities. A list of donors for each CCICED Phase is noted in Annex 1. Further information also is provided on cciced.net. Staff from various CCICED donor partners, both in China and their headquarter locations, provide substantial personnel support to CCICED’s activities. In fact, in many cases, the activities would have been challenging to complete without their insights and efforts.

CCICED Members and Advisors

A full listing of all Chinese and International CCICED members from 1992 to the present time is available on cciced.net. All serve in their personal capacity. They are appointed for 5-year terms, with re-appointment possible. CCICED Membership is about 60, split evenly between Chinese and international members. A sampling of well-recognized past and present international members is provided in Box 2.1. Some additional international experts are asked to serve as Special Advisors. They are tapped for their specialized knowledge and experience; some are invited to join research teams and, by invitation, attend AGMs and other CCICED activities. Research Team Leaders generally attend AGMs and sometimes other events in addition to sessions with their own research team.

Box 2.1. A Sampling of Prominent CCICED International Members (Past and Present)

Inger Andersen, Executive Director UNEP, Under-Secretary-General UN.

Peter Bakker, President and CEO of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).

Roger Beale, former Secretary, Department of Environment and Heritage, Australia.

Børge Brende, President, World Economic Forum, former Norwegian Minister (Environment, Foreign Affairs).

Catherine Day, former Secretary-General European Commission.

Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director and Chairwoman of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), former EU Commissioner and CEO of the World Bank Group.

Vidar Helgesen, Executive Director, Nobel Foundation, and former Norwegian Minister (Climate and Environment).

Naoko Ishii, Executive Vice President of Tokyo University, Director for Center for Global Commons, and former Chair and CEO of the Global Environmental Facility (GEF).

Francesco La Camera, Director-General of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

Martin Lees, Chair of the OECD-IIASA Strategic Partnership on Systems Approaches, former UN Assistant Secretary-General for Science and Technology, and Secretary-General for the Club of Rome.

Marco Lambertini, Director General of WWF International.

Lars-Erik Liljelund, former Executive Director of Mistra, and former Director General Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.

Marcel Massé, former President of CIDA, and former Canadian Minister (Intergovernmental Affairs, Treasury Board, Infrastructure).

Michael McElroy, Gilbert Butler Professor of Environmental Studies and Chair, Harvard-China Project on Energy, Economy and Environment.

Dirk Messner, Director, German Development Institute.

Kathleen McLaughlin, Chief Sustainability Officer at Walmart, President of the Walmart Foundation.

Andrew Steer, President and CEO of Bezos Earth Fund, former President of the World Resources Institute.

Achim Steiner, Administrator UNDP and Chair UN Sustainable Development Group, formerly Executive Director UNEP.

Lord Nicholas Stern, Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics (LSE).

Sir Crispin Tickell, former British Ambassador to the UN and Permanent Representative on the UN Security Council.

Hau Sing Tse, former Vice President, Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), former Executive Director, African Development Bank.

Laurence Tubiana, CEO of the European Climate Foundation, Frances’s Climate Change Ambassador and an architect of the 2015 Paris Agreement, former President of the Institute of Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI).

Zhang Xinsheng, former President, International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Executive Chairman, Eco-Forum Global (EFG).

Kandeh Yumkella, former Director General UNIDO, and CEO of Sustainable Energy for All.

Research Teams

CCICED began its research program in 1992–1993 and provided some preliminary recommendations to the State Council in April 1992. At the AGM held each year, usually in Beijing, a concise set of recommendations is prepared based on the available CCICED research outputs, from deliberations of CCICED members, and sometimes from other inputs. Typically, several hundred people take part in person during a CCICED AGM. The concise recommendations document is submitted each year to the State Council and discussed with a Vice Premier or Premier-level People’s Re[public of China (PRC) state official. The recommendations and full reports are distributed within government and placed online. On some occasions, specific recommendations are submitted between AGMs in order to be timely or meet other needs.

CCICED aims to distribute its work as broadly as possible. AGMs now can attract as many as 2,000 participants (in-person and virtual) over the three-day meeting periods. Some access sessions, such as Open Forums, which are available online. Currently, through cooperation with IISD, summaries of the AGM events are produced quickly through IISD Reporting Services. A full record of the research reports, recommendations, and other documents is released each year—as a Policy Research Report on Environment and Development book or other means. The same information is also permanently archived on cciced.net. All key information is produced in both Chinese and English. Over the years, a substantial number of other books and peer-reviewed papers have been produced by individuals and research teams drawing on their CCICED work.

The research teams are at the core of CCICED work. Each team includes both Chinese and international co-chairs, about five members each from the Chinese and international sides, other relevant researchers, and Chinese and international coordinators. In all, the average size of teams, including experts beyond the core, tends to be about 50 or more, including those participating in reviews and dialogue. The appointment terms for each team vary according to need and vary considerably depending on the length of the research activity. At present, activities generally run from one to three years. There is flexibility to ensure arrangements are compatible with objectives and needs. Each team prepares a Summary Report for presentation at the CCICED AGM of about 30 pages, in addition to any necessary background reports that may be tabled during the course of research. Oversight is provided by the Chief Advisors on content.

The most important elements are timeliness, credible and relevant factual content based on specified research objectives, and appropriate emphasis on high-priority, high-quality policy recommendations. Chief Advisors are responsible for preparing an integrated draft recommendations report from the materials submitted by research teams. The draft recommendations document is modified through CCICED member debates at the AGM and then accepted for submission to the State Council. In addition, the original, generally more detailed recommendations by research teams are also circulated to interested audiences within government and to others. They are accessible in their original form online. Many funding partners also take a direct role in the CCICED’s research, sometimes providing full funding responsibility for a particular project. It is a standing rule that no single organization can propose only members from their own organization or country to join a major research initiative. CCICED’s intention is to bring diverse perspectives by inviting people from a range of backgrounds onto research teams.

Themes During Each 5-Year CCICED Phase 1992–2021

The selection of research topics, preparation of terms of reference, supervision of quality, and preparation of recommendations occupy much of the work for the CCICED Secretariat and the Chief Advisors. In any single year, there can be up to 8–10 research teams active.

Environmental governance, finance, environmental and resource economics, S&T innovation, and the role of the marketplace have been key concerns since the early days of CCICED. These concerns are now expressed in terms of their roles regarding ecosystem health, sustainable development, ecological civilization, green development, and societal motivation and participation—for example, on topics such as sustainable consumption, trade, and investment. Over time, such efforts have expanded into collaborative arrangements helping to meet global and regional needs. Some have spun off into bilateral or other collaborative initiatives. Even so, some remain linked to CCICED, for example, green BRI, various energy conservation initiatives, ADB/PRC initiatives for green development in the Yangtze River basin, and business efforts such as those with the Chinese Business Council for Sustainable Development (CBCSD).

Table 2.2 provides an overview of work carried out by CCICED in each of its six phases. By the start of Phase III (2002–2006), specific themes were selected for each year’s AGM in order to bring coherence and identify synergies among related topics. This has proved helpful, although under each year’s theme, there can be 4, 5, or many more separate studies. Other activities supporting each year’s theme include roundtables, special events, the CCICED Issues Paper, and Open Forums co-organized by CCICED and its partners.

Table 2.2 CCICED themes for the six CCICED Phases and AGM themes Phases III to VI

Some Persistent/Recurrent Themes During CCICED’s 30-Year Period

Important topics often change in focus and in their relationship with each other, sometimes with time gaps. Others can be found in one form or another almost every year. An obvious case is pollution control, where activities can have dramatic shifts—for example, air pollution. CCICED started with a rather general examination of problems in the first two CCICED Phases and with an emphasis on command-and-control approaches such as those found in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries during the 1970s. By Phase III, efforts focused on control of specific regional pollutants, especially SO₂. Later, PM_2.5 and ground-level ozone issues became dominant sources of smog in cities such as Beijing, and sources also shifted. Now, more attention is given to synergies between air pollution and climate change mitigation, forming a mainstay of CCICED efforts. Comprehensive approaches to such issues have received a high level of attention, especially as the regional nature of problems was realized and acted upon in line with CCICED and other advice. Solutions have moved in the direction of emissions trading and other innovations. Despite considerable improvements, the air pollution situation throughout China remains difficult. Another decade or more is needed before victory in the War on Pollution can be fully claimed. But it is encouraging that considerable progress is evident in the return of blue skies and improvements to water quality even in some of the worst-hit areas.

For other topics, such as the pursuit of a low-carbon economy in China’s cities and rural areas, the time frames for fully effective policy will take many decades more. An important strength of CCICED is that it has the knowledge base, understanding, and relationships to provide long-term, meaningful advice. It is essential to highlight the short-term as well as the longer-term needs and benefits. This has led CCICED to prepare extended (in time) “roadmaps” with policy options and alternatives. An example is the broad field of energy and the environment. Phase I and II research studies identified the potential of renewable sources such as wind and solar well before this was being fully understood by others. Studies from 2008 to 2010 laid the groundwork for fundamental transformations for energy and environment and a low-carbon economy. Since then, there have been many CCICED studies on other aspects, including the phase-out of coal, the synergies between pollution control and climate change, and market-based mechanisms for reducing fossil fuel use. CCICED also pays particular attention to two-way processes between China and the world, seeking both domestic and international benefits. These approaches are likely to be of even more value in the future, as E&D issues continue to grow in complexity regarding both cause and effect.

Some other examples of persistent, long-term themes include the following topics: circular economy, green tech innovation and development; market-based and economic incentive systems for green development, including eco-compensation; green finance and investment; green spatial planning including ecological redlining, biodiversity conservation, national parks system, marine protected areas, and integrated water basin management; green trade, sustainable agriculture and food systems, sustainable production and consumption, sustainable urbanization, ecological restoration, rural vitalization, metrics of E&D, green laws and regulations fostering green development; governance and institutional strengthening; “China and the World” environmental issues; and comprehensive greening of international development cooperation.

Other important topics—such as business participation, including corporate social responsibilities (CSR), health and environment, risk management, cultural and social influences, and public participation—have been treated on a more sporadic basis by CCICED, but they are recognized as subjects not to be forgotten, sometimes covered broadly within a variety of initiatives in any particular year. Public participation and social aspects of sustainability continue to be of great significance, although progress takes time and careful transitions to be successful.