Political Economy Futures Forum

Abstract: As China has become a new global power, it has exerted growing influence on global environmental governance. With Beijing’s strong emphasis on ecological civilization and Trump’s retreat from environmental action, the international community has a high expectation of China to lead global environmental governance. To what extent has China become a global environmental leader, and how have Chinese actors pursued leadership roles? We address this knowledge gap by developing a framework on leadership to assess China-led initiatives in global environmental governance. We then introduce the China’s Global Environmental Leadership (CGEL) Database, which systematically tracks China-led international environmental governance initiatives. Using descriptive statistics, we show that China has become increasingly active over the past three decades in leading international environmental governance, initially at the bilateral level, but gradually towards transnational and multilateral levels. The geographic scope of China-led environmental governance initiatives has expanded rapidly with a growing number of initiatives operating at the global level. We also find that China’s leadership activities put strong emphasis on information-sharing, capacity-building, and research and scientific knowledge production. Our social network analysis reveals the central roles of key governmental agencies behind the rise of China-led initiatives, but also a trend of diversification with a growing number of Chinese non-state actors co-leading initiatives with their international partners. Our study advances knowledge on China’s changing role in global environmental governance and provides novel empirical insights into China’s emerging leadership in addressing global ecological crises.

First published: 18 February 2026