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41 UCLA Pac. Basin L.J. 63 (2025)
Legal Implications of Coal Workforce Reduction Strategies in China

handle is hein.journals/uclapblj41 and id is 226 raw text is: LEGAL IMPLICATIONS OF COAL WORKFORCE REDUCTION STRATEGIES IN CHINA Quan Zou, Yumeng Liu, Michael R. Davidson TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................. 63 II. B ACKGROUND ................................................................................... 64 III. ANALYSIS OF SHIFTING DOWNSIZING STRATEGIES..............................67 A. Workforce Resettlement Strategies ........................................67 B. Legal Basis for Downsizing........................................................69 IV. POLICY IMPLICATIONS FOR COAL SECTOR DOWNSIZING......................71 A PPEN D IX ................................................................................................. . 72 I. INTRODUCTION China's coal sector is the largest contributor to the country's green- house gas emissions and a major cause of air pollution, which claims over 1 million lives annually.1 Long-term climate commitments include a target to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, which entails between a 60-90 percent reduction in coal use by mid-century.2 Of the many chal- lenges associated with this transition, addressing the dislocation of coal and fossil fuel workers is perhaps the most challenging. While there are recognized efforts to achieve a just transition that works for fossil com- munities and workers, practices to date in China do not fully prioritize these groups.3 The closest analogue to what will need to be achieved is the supply- side restructuring of mostly state-owned coal and other heavy industries concentrated in 2016-2018 and continuing to this day. The coal sector has shed over 2 million jobs since its recent peak of 2013-and, in con- trast to earlier state-owned enterprise (SOE) reforms, did not result in widespread social unrest. Lessons were learned from earlier periods, and the increased institutionalization of labor contract law is a possible argument for the relatively smoother workforce reduction mandated 1. Maigeng Zhou et al., Mortality, Morbidity, and Risk Factors in China and Its Provinces, 1990-2017: A Systematic Analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017, 394 LANCET 1145,1145-58 (2019). 2. David Sandalow et al., Guide to Chinese Climate Policy 2022 (2022). 3. Weila Gong & Joanna I. Lewis, The Politics of China's Just Transition and the Shift Away from Coal, 115 ENERGY RESEARCH & SOCIAL SCIENCE 103643 (2024). © 2024 Quan Zou, Yumeng Liu, Michael R. Davidson. All rights reserved. 63