Project

Carbon Capture: The Making of a Climate Change Solution in China

Program

Luce/ACLS Travel Grants in China Studies

Department

Geography

Abstract

Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS)—a technical fix that climate justice advocates say sustains business as usual conditions for emitters while displacing mitigation burdens onto marginalized people and places—is receiving unprecedented policy support and investment in China as a climate change solution. This research asks how and why this is happening. The project engages ethnographic methods within a climate tech startup accelerator in China to understand specifically how private capital articulates with environmental governance in shaping CCUS. Through investigating political economies of these technologies, the research aims to advance China Studies scholarship on environmental governance and relationships between the state and private capital in constituting this governance.