Institutional deficit and lack of legitimacy: the challenges of climate change governance in Hong Kong

Despite growing interest in China's response to climate change, few studies address what is happening at the sub-national level. Hong Kong has implemented several mitigation and adaptation climate-related initiatives. An analytical framework combining multi-level governance with the concepts of institutionalisation and legitimisation is applied to Hong Kong's climate initiatives. Hong Kong's ability to devise a climate change strategy that is institutionalised and legitimated is found to be constrained by a range of climate policy-specific and broader socio-economic and political factors.