China’s impressive economic achievements have come at a high cost for its ecological environment: air pollution, water pollution, and soil contamination are present almost everywhere and affects everyone. In addition, China is now the world’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide and has recently acknowledged its contributions to global warming and the need for drastic mitigation of greenhouse gases. Facing these tremendous challenges, remarkable shifts in the way that Chinese society communicates and tackles these problems are occurring. At the same time, “environmental pollution” and “climate change” seem to represent distinct aspects in Chinese discourses about ecological ‘sustainability’, rather than two sides of one coin.
In this seminar we will scrutinize this observation and look, in particular, at relevant public debates, as well as at existing research on crucial policies and popular initiatives, to approach these issues – using both English and Chinese language sources. In addition, general notions such as “sustainability”, “discourse”, the “anthropocene”, “ecological communication” and “authoritarian environmentalism” will be discussed as concepts that can inform our analyses.