A review of research on China’s carbon emission peak and its forcing mechanism

In order to make further steps in dealing with climate change, China proposed to peak carbon dioxide emissions by about 2030 and to make best efforts for the peaking early. The carbon emission peak target (CEPT) must result in a forcing mechanism on China’s economic transition. This paper, by following the logical order from “research on carbon emission history” to “carbon emission trend prediction,” from “research on paths of realizing peak” to “peak restraint research,” provides a general review of current status and development trend of researches on China’s carbon emission and its peak value. Furthermore, this paper also reviews the basic theories and specific cases of the forcing mechanism. Based on the existing achievements and development trends in this field, the following research directions that can be further expanded are put forward. First, from the perspective of long-term strategy of sustainable development, we should analyze and construct the forcing mechanism of CEPT in a reverse thinking way. Second, economic transition paths under the forcing mechanism should be systematically studied. Third, by constructing a large-scale policy evaluation model, the emission reduction performance and economic impact of a series of policy measures adopted during the transition process should be quantitatively evaluated.     

Empirical analysis of carbon tariff’s effect on the export structure of China’s manufacturing industry and social welfare based on the GTAP model

In recent years, carbon emissions have gradually evolved from an environment issue into a political and economic one. Carbon tariff has brought about new trade barriers of developed countries, and in order to enhance the industrial competitiveness of developed countries, it will produce unfavorable impact on developing countries. Concentrated on the manufacturing industry, which is the most intensive high-carbon industry in China’s export structure, this article studies the relationship between carbon tariff policy and industry structure of export trade and builds up a relation between climate change and international trade. First, by means of establishing a partial equilibrium model, it applies geometric analysis and mathematical analysis to compute the impact on China’s manufacturing export trade and the consequences of the introduction of the US carbon tariff to China’s manufacturing industry that has already imposed a domestic shipping carbon tax. Furthermore, with the application of the GTAP model, it estimates the overall economic and welfare effects on China’s manufacturing industry if the US and Europe introduce carbon tariff by means of four ways, and then analyzes the influence on China’s manufacturing industry export structure and social welfare as well. The result shows that the introduction of the US carbon import tariff lowers China’s export price and export volume, and the implementation of a domestic carbon tax justifies a higher export price and a lower export volume for China. However, the degree of export reduction is smaller than that under the effect of the US carbon tariff. In the case of developed countries imposing carbon tariff on China’s energy-intensive industries, such as chemical rubber products, oil and coal-processing industry and paper industry, whose export would be reduced, the negative impact on the paper industry is the severest, which will decrease the paper industry’s export ranging from 1.79% to 6.05%, whereas the other industries’ export will increase. Anyhow, it will promote China’s manufacturing industry to adjust the export structure to a certain extent. In addition, it will lead to a decrease in China’s welfare, with a decrease between $2.134 billion and $8.347 billion. Finally, this paper provides information on international coordination, export structure adjustment and green manufacturing adjustment as a reference for the development of China’s manufacturing industry.     

Evaluation on the development degree of China’s seven pilot carbon markets

China is preparing to establish a nationwide carbon market in 2017, and in order to facilitate this goal, seven pilot carbon markets have been under study for the past few years. This paper summarizes the operation experience and challenges of the seven pilot carbon markets in China. It has been widely accepted that the essence of a carbon market is to solve environmental problems through market mechanisms, with environmental benefit being the fundamental purpose, market mechanism being the key measure, and policies and regulations being an important guarantee for an orderly carbon market. Therefore, this paper constructs an evaluation index system composed of 34 detailed sub-indexes in three dimensions, such as environmental constraint force, market resource allocation ability, and supporting policies and facility completeness. Through analyzing the operation data from 2013 to 2016, the weights of the sub-indexes are obtained. In addition, the study obtains experts’ opinions from over 10 carbon permits exchanges, consultancy firms and research institutions in China, and conducts a comprehensive evaluation on the development degree of the seven pilot carbon markets. Results show that the pilot carbon markets that include private SMEs as the covered entities for emissions control present relatively higher environmental constraint force. But too many covered entities could increase the difficulty of market performance management, while the pilots that include high energy-consuming state-owned enterprises as the entities for emissions control demonstrate a phenomenon of “high market compliance rate with low trading volume”. The resource allocation capability of China’s carbon market has not been effectively brought into play, and low degree of market participation has become an important constraint factor for market development. Due to the lack of laws and regulations at the national macro-level, the legally binding force of the pilot markets construction is obviously insufficient, and the supporting policies are lacking foresights. Generally, the development of China’s pilot carbon markets is still in such a fragmented state as in the aspects of environment, market and policy development, and the market operation has not yet achieved the purpose of solving environmental problems through market mechanisms. Accordingly, policy recommendations pointed out by this study are that tightening the allowance of free quota and progressively increasing the auction proportion, improving legal construction, increasing the services and products of carbon finance and standardizing the order of market transactions, enhancing capacity building of local governments and promoting the participation willingness and capability of emissions control entities, will be necessary.     

Government drive,economic induction,and construction of food traceability systems:An empirical study based on supermarket samples from ’first-tier’ and ’Olympic’ cities in China

Food traceability systems are capable of overcoming or alleviating problems caused by incomplete and asymmetric information on food markets.This study conducts an empirical analysis using 308 supermarket samples from China’s Beijing,Guangzhou,and Qingdao to determine the factors that influence supermarket behavior when operating traceability systems.The results show that operating profits(generated from food traceability systems),scale of operation,level of economic development(of a city),and government subsidies will positively affect the decision of supermarkets to use traceability systems.At the same time,government policies promoting food traceability systems should have a long-term role.     

Environmental efficiency and its determinants in the development of China’s western regions in 2000–2014

In this study, we measure the environmental efficiency of western China in 2000–2014 by the super-efficiency slacks-based measure model which considers the undesirable outputs. The results show that the environmental efficiency of western China is low and rank behind in the national level. The environmental efficiency is lower than the traditional efficiency which reflects that the economic growth in 2000–2014 has paid high environmental costs. The difference between the traditional efficiency and environmental efficiency experienced “inverted U”-type trend change. The environmental efficiency of the western provinces presented differentiated developing trend and the differences between the western provinces were enlarging. The environmental efficiency of the western regions was not only lower than that in the eastern regions with a big gap but also lower than that in the central regions. Through the convergence test, we found that the environmental efficiency gap between the western and the eastern regions was gradually expanding; meanwhile, the environmental efficiency gap between the central and the western regions was narrowing. This paper also analyzes the determinants of environmental efficiency by the tobit model and then addresses.     

Discussion on the Mode of China’s Low-carbon Society and Construction Routes

In responding to global climate change,the idea of low-carbon economy emerges as the times require.Developing low-carbon economy is based on the construction of low-carbon society.The so called "two-orientation society"(resources conservation orientated society and environmental friendly orientated society) is the concrete representation of low-carbon society with Chinese characteristics,and an actual action for China in developing low-carbon economy.Based on urban agglomeration,the paper discusses the meaning of and the route to low-carbon society which would better reflect the intrinsic requirements of such a society.     

Research on the effects of command-and-control and market-oriented policy tools on China’s energy conservation and emissions reduction innovation

The impact of environmental regulation on technology innovation is a hot spot in current research where a large number of empirical studies are based on Porter Hypothesis (PH). However, there are still controversies in academia about the establishment of “weak” and “narrow” versions of PH. Based on the panel data of application for patent of energy conservation and emission reduction (ECER) technology of Chinese city scale during 2008–2014, comprehensive energy price, pollutant emission, etc., mixed regression model and systematic generalized method of moments method were adopted, respectively, to study the impact of market-oriented and command-and-control policy tool on China’s ECER technology innovation. The results show that the environmental regulation hindered the technological innovation in the immediate phase; however, it turned out to be positive in the first-lag phase. Hence, the establishment of “weak” PH is time-bounded. The command-and-control policy tool played a more positive role in promoting technological innovation in the first-lag phase than market-oriented policy tool. Therefore, “narrow” PH is not tenable. The reason is that the main participants of China’s ECER technology innovation are state-owned companies and public institutions. Regionally speaking, the impact which command-and-control policy tool has on technological innovation at sight was non-significant in the eastern, the central, and the western regions of China whilst market-oriented policy tool had a negative effect. And market-oriented policy tool in the central region had strongest negative effect, which would diminish in the eastern region and become weakest in the western region. This was related to regional energy consumption level and the market economic vitality.     

Study on the Relationship between Tourist Influence and Residents’ Sense of Community:An Empirical Study from Changdao Countyin Shandong Province

Residents’ sense of community is an important prerequisite to promote the development of community.Tourism has significant influence on residents’ sense of community.An empirical study from Changdao shows that economy and life conflict caused by tourism can affect neighborhood-friendly and community participation significantly.Culture,environment and social services from tourism can significantly affect community association,community care and place recognition.Therefore,the regional managers should pay attention to allocate revenues in the residents fairly and protect own culture to avoid the negative impact from tourism.     

Chinese hydropower companies and environmental norms in countries of the global South: the involvement of Sinohydro in Ghana’s Bui Dam

The paper examines the role of environmental norms in Chinese overseas investment in hydropower dams, exemplified by Sinohydro’s involvement in the Bui Dam in Ghana. While the investment of Western companies in hydropower dams in the global South is decreasing owing to changing notions of sustainability in the West, the investment of Chinese companies in hydro dams in Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America is accelerating at great speed. The emergence of Chinese companies in international markets in the context of China’s Going Abroad strategy has sparked a debate on whether China can be considered a norm-changer in international development. The paper considers this question in the context of the status of environmental norms in Sinohydro’s investment in Ghana’s Bui Dam. The paper argues that the role of international norms in Chinese investment is dependent on two factors: the contractual arrangements under which Chinese companies operate abroad and the political institutions of host countries.     

Study on the Relationship between Tourist Influence and Residents’ Sense of Community: An Empirical Study from Changdao County in Shandong Province

Abstract

Residents’ sense of community is an important prerequisite to promote the development of community. Tourism has significant influence on residents’ sense of community. An empirical study from Changdao shows that economy and life conflict caused by tourism can affect neighborhood-friendly and community participation significantly. Culture, environment and social services from tourism can significantly affect community association, community care and place recognition. Therefore, the regional managers should pay attention to allocate revenues in the residents fairly and protect own culture to avoid the negative impact from tourism.     

An International Comparative Analysis on China’s Economic Growth and the Convergence in Energy Intensity Gap and Its Economic Mechanism

Abstract

In this paper, the authors have empirically analyzed the convergence in per capita GDP gap and the convergence in the variation of energy intensity with respect to the change of per capita GDP between China and eight developed countries. Then, the authors run a regression on the impact of decisive factors of economic growth on energy intensity and its change, so as to find out the economic mechanism of energy intensity gap changing with respect to the variation of economic growth. This study concludes that: First, there is a convergence in per capita GDP gap between China and the eight developed countries. With the convergence in per capita GDP gap, the energy intensity gap between China and eight different countries also converge, and the convergence rate of the latter is faster than that of the former, i.e. if the per capita GDP gap between China and the eight developed countries decreases by 1%, the energy intensity gap between them will correspondingly decrease by 1.552%. Second, the energy intensity decreases with the improvement of industrial structure, the rising of energy prices, the advances of technology, and the expansion of investment in fixed assets, and it slightly increases with the increase of FDI. Third, the energy intensity gap between China and eight developed countries narrows with the lessening of the difference in fixed assets investment, energy prices, and technological progress between China and eight developed countries, yet increases with the narrowing of the difference in FDI, and has no significant correlation with the difference in industrial structure. Fourth, the narrowing of difference in per capita GDP between China and the eight developed countries can result in the lessening of energy intensity gap, whose economic mechanism is that the decisive factors, such as difference in investment, technology, and the competition mechanism of prices, which can determine the difference in economic growth, can significantly affect the energy intensity gap.     

Conflict and Coordination Problem of Carbon Tax’ Diversity Targets in China-Based on the Tax Optimization Theory

Among all the emission reduction measures,carbon tax is recognized as the most effective way to protect our climate.That is why the Chinese government has recently taken it as a tax reform direction.In the current economic analysis,the design of carbon tax is mostly based on the target to maximize the efficiency.However,based on the theory of tax system optimization,we should also consider other policy objectives,such as equity,revenue and cost,and then balance different objectives to achieve the suboptimum reform of carbon tax system in China.     

Distributional dynamic and trend evolution of China’s agricultural carbon emissions – an analysis on panel data of 31 provinces from 2002 to 2011

Researching the dynamic distribution characteristics and trend evolution of agricultural carbon emissions is of considerable significance in formulating an effective agricultural carbon reduction policy. Based on measurement of agricultural carbon emissions of 31 provinces over the period 2002–2011, the study observed regional differences and the dynamic evolution of distribution of agricultural carbon emissions using agricultural carbon intensity as the indicator, accompanied by Gini coefficients and the kernel density estimation method. The results demonstrate first that agricultural carbon emissions for China show an obvious nonequilibrium nature in regard to spatial distribution. According to the differences in agricultural carbon emissions dynamic trends, we divided the 31 regions into four types – continuous decline, fluctuating decline, continuous increase, and fluctuating increase. Further, agricultural carbon emissions intensity showed a downward trend with significant differences in the research areas. Second, the gap in spatial distribution of national agricultural carbon emissions is gradually expanding based on the results calculated by Gini coefficient. From the perception of regional differences in agricultural carbon emissions, the eastern region showed an average level, the gap was more obvious in the central region, while western region showed a trend of fluctuating downward. Third, according to estimation by kernel density, the regional disparity in agricultural carbon emissions had a downward, but limited, trend. In regard to agricultural carbon emissions over the three areas, the regional gap not only tended to decrease but also showed a “four way” differentiation phenomenon in the eastern region. The difference in the central region difference was narrower. On the whole, the gap for the western region reduced steadily over a small range.     

Study on the efficiency and regional disparity of green technology innovation in China’s industrial companies

This paper first constructed a system to evaluate the innovation efficiency of industrial companies within Mainland China. Then, a principal component analysis (PCA) was performed to these indicators for dimensionality reduction, so as to figure out the technology innovation efficiency in these two phases, respectively. Finally, the overall efficiency of industrial companies in different regions was estimated and factorized via data envelopment analysis (DEA). The results showed that: (1) the efficiency of green technology innovation of industrial companies in China was relatively low as a whole, which mainly resulted from pure technical efficiency (PTE). Further, this huge gap continues to expand in these regions. And both PTE and scale efficiency (SE) in central and western regions leave much to be expected. (2) In the first phase of green technology development, when environmental factors were concerned, the efficiency was much lower than that without environmental considerations. Besides, the central and western regions were facing increasingly severe environmental problems, and there was a wide disparity in technology development efficiency among eastern, central, and western regions. (3) In the second phase of green technology commercialization, there were still more rooms for improvement in raising the efficiency of green technology innovation, and the efficiency in eastern, central, and western regions was ranked from highest to lowest. (4) Liaoning, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Xinjiang, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Yunnan, and Qinghai should focus on improving their technology; Jilin, Jiangxi, Anhui, and Guangxi should make their efforts to reduce resource redundancy; whereas Ningxia and Gansu should try to solve the above two issues.     

Exploring new ideas for sustainable development of urban agglomerations-based on the coupling of people’s livelihood and environmental governance

Environment, Development and Sustainability - Peoples’ livelihood and environmental governance are interrelated and interact with each other, which is a new starting point for the study of...     

An integrated approach for the benchmarking of production facilities’ environmental performance: data envelopment analysis and life cycle assessment

Environmental impacts have become an important consideration in the manufacturing industry due to increasing public pressure for environment protection and the requirements of recently launched legislations. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a widely adopted methodological approach for the benchmarking of the relative efficiency of different production units. Changes in production efficiency may affect environmental impacts. DEA can be used for identifying the most efficient production facility and hence, the environmental impacts generated from the different production lines can then be benchmarked. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is carried out to quantify the full environmental impacts of a product from ‘cradle to grave’. The integration of LCA with DEA, efficiency and environmental impact of different production processes for a certain family of products can be evaluated and benchmarked. The proposed two-stage approach can help to reduce the aggregate environmental impacts of the manufacturing phase and is used to benchmark the environmental performance of several production lines in a manufacturing company.     

Are SDGs suitable for China’s sustainable development assessment? An application and amendment of the SDGs Indicators in China

In order to further ensure that the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is to be implemented and the action measures of all countries are consistent, the United Nations has put forward a set of indicators to monitor and evaluate the progress of global sustainable development. This set of evaluation indicators is aimed for global and regional progress. An important feature of the evaluation indicators is that they are internationally comparable, but due to the large differences in the levels of sustainable development among countries, this framework of evaluation indicators has a disadvantage that it does not apply to tracking the progress of sustainable development at the national level. This paper focuses on the analysis of specific issues in the application of the global sustainable development indicators framework to meet the goals and targets of the UN and builds a system of evaluation indicators to assess the progress of sustainable development at the national level in China, and offers a perspective to assess China’s progress as well.     

The clean development mechanism and community forests in Sub-Saharan Africa: reconsidering Kyoto’s “moral position” on biocarbon sinks in the carbon market

Negotiations of the Kyoto Protocol reached what has been called a moral position on biocarbon sinks which saw important limitations on their use in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), the Protocol’s main carbon offset system. After outlining this moral position, this article examines the consequences of these limitations on the viability of community forest participation in the CDM through a case study of three community forests in West Africa. Results suggest that there is significant carbon mitigation potential from forest conservation, reforestation as well as from improved fuelwood cookstoves at the community level. Yet under the current rules of the CDM, little of this overall carbon mitigation potential is able to be realized. Using qualitative research methodologies, it was learned that community respondents showed a pragmatic, yet cautious interest in the CDM while also emphasizing a need for land-use flexibility. The paper closes with a political discussion of the “‘moral position” on biocarbon sinks in the carbon market and concludes with policy recommendations for biocarbon sinks, in both the CDM and REDD, in the post-Kyoto climate change regime.     

Study on the Relationship between Tourist Influence and Residents＇ Sense of Community： An Empirical Study from Changdao County in Shandong Province

Residents＇ sense of community is an important prereq- uisite to promote the development of community. Tourism has sig- nificant influence on residents＇ sense of community. An empirical study from Chang...