Towards a policy model for climate change mitigation: China's experience with wind power development and lessons for developing countries

China has created a policy path to alleviate the pressure on carbon dioxide emissions. As other developing countries with rising per capita GDPs are emerging as important greenhouse gas emitters, the experience of China holds important lessons. In order to mitigate the reality of climate change, developing countries need carefully to assess appropriate policy models for renewable energy development. This article contains an analysis of the Chinese policy path and impact on the speed and benefit of domestic wind turbine installations. It is found that policy-makers have faced a critical trade-off between “fast-track” cutbacks on fossil energy sources through wind power development and “slow-track” wind power installations through development of a local manufacturing industry. China's choice of the slow-track model has proved constructive with the largest potential for CO2 reductions. The article identifies China's ability to coordinate policies for supply and demand as an inevitable factor for the success of the model. The immediate value of this analysis is to the benefit of developing countries' future choice of policy model. Policy-makers in emerging economies that wish to develop renewable energy sources have to take into account the institutional, manufacturing and wind resource foundations of their respective countries. The article concludes that a majority of developing countries may have to look towards a fast-track policy model. However, the larger emerging economies with manufacturing capabilities and strong wind resource endowments could realize a greater part of the potential for emission reductions through the slow-track model of wind energy development.