Xiaoran Li is a postdoctoral researcher at the Climate Economics and Policy unit of MCC Berlin, working on the GeoClimRisk: The Geopolitics of Climate Risks project.
Before joining PIK/MCC, she conducted her PhD research at the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, where she focused on China’s evolving role in global climate governance. Specifically, her work examines how policy coherence across various governance levels shapes the effectiveness of China’s climate actions, both domestically and internationally. As part of this research, she investigates climate policy mix assessments—including policy instruments and intensity—and identifies and examines different forms of climate leadership.
With an interdisciplinary background in political science and development studies, Xiaoran integrates both qualitative and quantitative methods to explore climate governance. Her research toolkit includes large-N policy database and index-based assessments— for evaluating the scope and ambition of climate policy mixes—as well as content and discourse analysis and semi-structured interviews, which provide deeper insights into policy narratives and stakeholder perspectives.
Contact
14412 Potsdam
ORCID
- climate governance
- environmental policy
- Li, X., He, S., Gu, Y. et al. Unpacking China’s climate policy mixes shows a disconnect between policy density and intensity in the post-Paris era. npj Clim. Action 4, 30 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44168-025-00233-6
- Li, X., Pattberg, P., & Widerberg, O. (2023). China’s climate governance from 2009 to 2019: motivations, instruments, actors, and geopolitics. Climate Policy, 24(3), 378–395. https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2023.2260352
