China’s Technological Catch-up to a Green Future

Abstract

Rock, Michael T.; Toman, Michael A. China’s Technological Catch-up Strategy: Industrial Development, Energy Efficiency and CO2 Emissions, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. 296 pp. £37.49 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-19-938532-4 . The book by Rock and Toman is themed on the extensively discussed and debated issue of China’s transition towards a low-carbon economy. The issue is of tremendous significance and meaning to both China and the world, as the country has become the single largest emitter of greenhouse gases since 2007, accounting for 29% of the world’s total CO2 emissions in 2013 (Olivier, Janssens-Maenhout, Muntean and Peters, 2014, p.13). The central argument of the book is that improved energy efficiency in Chinese industries is highly dependent on industrial policies and institutions that encourage enterprises to build technological capabilities. It is pointed out that enterprise investments in technological upgrading lead to successful technology transfer and the building of more robust technological capabilities...