The rise and characteristics of China in global environmental governance: Insights from China's global environmental leadership database
Sun,Y., and Ye, Y., 2026. Earth System Governance, 29
9 June 2026
With China’s progress on green development and recent geopolitical shifts, the international community has high expectations for China to lead global environmental governance. However, China’s efforts to lead international environmental cooperation remain understudied. We developed China’s Global Environmental Leadership (CGEL) Database to systematically track international environmental governance initiatives led by Chinese actors. Our analysis of 291 initiatives reveals that China has become increasingly active in leading international environmental cooperation, with the geographic scope of these initiatives expanding rapidly. While central government agencies have largely driven this expansion, we observe a trend of diversification with a growing number of Chinese non-state actors developing their own initiatives. On governance functions, China-led initiatives focus primarily on information-sharing, capacity-building, and scientific knowledge production. The CGEL Database offers granular data for further quantitative and qualitative investigations of China’s influence on global environmental governance and a transferable methodology for tracking other countries’ leadership initiatives.