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This paper explores opportunities for effective policy intervention for residential energy savings in southern China, by analyzing achievable potential of residential energy savings in the city of Xiamen as a case study. In contrast to static technical and economic potential analyses, the achievable potential analysis is based on dynamic energy consumption projections, which consider two real-world factors: (1) gradual ramping-up adoption process of advanced technical measures; and (2) consumers’ adoption of these measures. A bottom-up type Residential Energy Consumption (REC) projection model specifically tailored for southern China was developed in this paper, based on the general logic and calculation principles utilized in the U.S. EIA’s “National Energy Modeling System (NEMS),” and the adoption theory of advanced technical measures proposed by Kastovich. This REC projection model was then used as a policy analysis tool to quantitatively evaluate the impact of various policies on residential energy savings in the case study city of Xiamen. The analysis of the Xiamen case shows that although there is a significant technical potential for residential energy savings in the city (about 20.9–24.9%), the maximum achievable potential (MAP) in 2020 is only about 8.3–8.4% of that year’s business-as-usual baseline consumption. Moreover, with existing policies only about one-fourth to half of the calculated MAP is likely to be achieved by 2020. These findings indicate that in order to realize a larger share of achievable potential for residential energy savings in China, additional and more effective polices are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Whilst a plethora of literature has viewed technological progress as one of the critical influencing factors in relation to energy consumption and CO 2 emissions, little effort has been made to identify the sectoral differences in the relationship between technological progress and CO 2 emissions. Thereby, this paper remedies the inadequacies in the extant literature by empirically investigating the impact of technological progress on CO 2 emissions, specifically taking into account its heterogeneous effect in various economic sectors. This paper first decomposes the effect of technological progress as taking place in heavy industry, in light industry, in construction industry, and in service industry. A panel quantile regression approach and a balanced city panel data model are then applied, covering the period 2001–2013 in China. The empirical results show that technological progress in heavy industry and light industry surprisingly facilitates a higher level of CO 2 emissions, despite its prominent contribution to energy efficiency improvement. Meanwhile, as distinct from the effect it shows in the heavy and light industries, technological progress in construction and service industries exerts a negative effect on CO 2 emissions. Additionally, this paper further discovers that the strength of the multiple impacts of technological progress also varies with the level of emitters. By studying the heterogeneous effect brought about by technological progress in different economic sectors and emitters, this paper provides a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between CO 2 emissions and technological progress. Highlights • The study considers the sectoral and scale heterogeneity of technological progress in relation to CO 2 emissions. • We apply a panel quantile regression approach to balanced city-level panel data. • Technological progress within different economic sectors exerts different effects on CO 2 emissions. • The role of technological progress in moderating energy intensity varies across emitters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract In recent years, China's wind power industry has developed rapidly, and become the global wind power leader. At the same time, China's wind power industry is also facing many problems and challenges. In this paper, a comprehensive assessment is presented to reveal the development history of China's wind power industry, power demand and cost, regional distribution of wind power, wind turbine manufacturers, and government incentives to wind power industry. Subsequently, future development and challenges are proposed, focusing on the challenge of wind power integration and consumption, the challenge of management and market competition mechanism, and the challenge of large-scale and rapid development. Finally, the corresponding measures are put forward. The fundamental goal of this paper is to understand the history, current situation and future challenges of China's wind power industry. Highlights • A comprehensive assessment on the development of China's wind power industry is presented. • The development history of China's wind power and energy demand are introduced. • Multi factors related to China's wind power industry are investigated. • Future challenges and corresponding measures of China's wind power industry are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A comprehensive review of the thermal power industry and the accurate forecasting of carbon emissions can provide valuable information to improve energy efficiency and act as a tool for policy makers to realize sustainable and low-carbon emissions from the thermal power industry. In this paper, we study the low-carbon development of China's thermal power industry based on an international comparison from three perspectives: review, analysis and forecast. Initially, we review both the international and national energy consumption of China; although gaps in energy efficiency still exist between China and countries with advanced thermal power technology, China's thermal power industry is gradually following a low-carbon development route. Then, we analyze low-carbon technologies for thermal power units, including ultra-super-critical technology, integrated gasification combined cycle technology, and carbon capture and storage technology and present a design for environmental protection technology for thermal power units. Carbon emissions should be effectively and successfully handled to improve the prospects of China's thermal power industry. Therefore, this paper forecasts carbon emissions by using a hybrid grey model that is optimized by the firefly algorithm and adjusted by weakening buffer operator based on the calculated carbon emissions. If China's carbon emissions from the thermal power industry increase according to the present rate, China will have difficulty in realizing its carbon reduction target by 2020. Finally, related future policies for the 13th Five-Year Plan of China are proposed based on low-carbon policies around the world with regard to financial, technological and industrial aspects to help the thermal power industry achieve healthy and low-carbon development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a non-Arctic country and a major energy consumer, China is increasingly interested in participating in Arctic energy development. This study aims to investigate potential strategies to promote China's participation in Arctic energy development. Accordingly, this study analyzes the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of China's participation in Arctic energy development based on a discussion of the current status of Arctic energy development and the Arctic policies of major countries. In addition, this work develops strategies in accordance with the above analysis. The results show that China has strengths in terms of capital, energy demand, policy support, and international cooperation when participating in Arctic energy development, while its weaknesses include the lack of core technology and equipment, high carbon intensity of energy development, and geographical disadvantage. China faces opportunities stemming from conflicts among Arctic states, the advancement of global carbon neutrality, and the development of Arctic waterway while facing threats such as increased competition, international public opinion pressure, high development costs, environmental risks, and pandemic instability. Under an integrated framework, this work offers four strategies: Strength-Opportunity (SO), Strength-Threat (ST), Weakness-Opportunity (WO), and Weakness-Threat (WT). Finally, this study proposes specific measures in four areas, including strengthening policy support, promoting technical research and development, enhancing international cooperation, and improving enterprise competitiveness. [Display omitted] • This study examines China's participation in Arctic energy development. • This paper reviews the status of fossil and non-fossil energy in the Arctic. • This study compares the Arctic energy development strategies of major countries. • This study proposes four strategies, namely SO, ST, WO, and WT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The significant variation in building׳s energy intensity is partly due to the large number of distributed energy users characterized by heterogeneous lifestyles and nonuniform consumption behaviours. Understanding the degree of variation and its cause is critical to designing appropriate policies for energy efficiency improvement. This paper aims to provide a data-based benchmark of buildings energy performance in China and investigates the facts and causes of large variations in energy consumption across buildings based on updated and harmonised dataset. Specifically, the paper is the first in literature to decompose aggregate heating consumption in northern urban China and reallocate the disaggregate data to relevant residential and commercial building energy use, which makes it consistent to conduct international comparison of building performance in terms of primary energy intensity. It is found that buildings energy performance exhibits a sizeable heterogeneity varying with building typology and climate zones in China. Heating and cooling energy consumption for residential buildings located in HSCW climate zone may differ by a factor of 4–10 depending on the technology and energy supply mode, whereby nontechnical interventions may have significant impacts on total energy demand in the built environment. In particular, our analysis results point to the importance of making greater efforts in the commercial sector. Commercial buildings are found significantly more energy intensive than their residential counterpart, mainly due to the fact that BEE policy has been poorly implemented and architectural design has not been optimised in commercial sector. An estimate suggests that improving energy efficiency in the commercial sector may contribute to one-fifth of total energy savings potentials by 2020 in line with the IEA׳s 450 ppm scenario. It is necessary for Chinese building authorities to incorporate the heterogeneity characteristics across different climate zones and building typologies into BEE policy portfolio to effectively curb energy consumption related carbon emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a good power supplement form of super power and large-scale energy base, distributed energy has the characteristics of less investment and flexible power generation. Facing with the double pressure of the sustainable development of energy use and environmental protection, it has become an efficient solution to meet the demand of load growth, reduce environmental pollution and improve the comprehensive utilization of energy and the reliability of power supply. However, the development of distributed energy starts relatively late in China and confronts many difficulties. So this paper analyzes the present development situation and existing problems of the distributed energy in China. Then it elaborates from the aspects of policies and regulations, technical specifications, price policy and grid-interconnection codes. At last, this paper puts forward relevant policy suggestions of the guarantee mechanism of distributed energy. This paper argues that, with the attention of the development of distributed energy increasing, a series of policies to promote the construction and interconnection of distributed energy will be introduced, and distributed energy will get scaled development in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy poverty has got increasing attention during the latest three decades. Measuring energy poverty is the premise of policy making to alleviate energy poverty. There is no unified energy poverty measurement that has been widely accepted. This paper reviews the commonly used energy poverty measurements through classifying them into three categories: energy service availability, energy service quality, and satisfaction of energy demand for human׳s survival and development. This paper also analyzes the suitability of the commonly used energy poverty measurement for China from the prospective of data availability and index applicability. Furthermore, we construct a new energy poverty comprehensive evaluation index in this study, and the index is illustrated to evaluate regional energy poverty in China. The evaluation results indicate that China׳s energy poverty showed an alleviating trend from 2000 to 2011, and during this period, China׳s energy service availability improved slightly; energy consumption cleanliness showed no significant change; energy management completeness decreased with fluctuations; and household energy affordability and energy efficiency improved continually. In addition, China׳s regions show different characteristics of energy poverty. For example, Middle reaches of Yangtze River region showed the worst energy availability and Eastern coastal region showed the worst energy management completeness. Several policy implications for energy poverty alleviation are also proposed in this study, including, for instance, increasing investment on energy infrastructure, and spreading energy management organization in rural area; decreasing relative cost on household commercial energy consumption, and encourage the utilization of modern, clean and efficient household energy consumption equipment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is vast, abundant and particularly plentiful in energy sources, due to which it has obtained remarkable achievements on economy. However, its energy structure is too simple to support the sustainable development of economy as coal still contributes to the majority of energy consumption in China. As a consequence, Renewable Energy Law was enacted in 2005, and Chinese government announced a series of policies to boom renewable energy industry. Subsidy policy is one of the major forms of these policies. This paper aims to present these subsidy policies and to analyze their effects according to relative data in energy industry 2005–2013, to find out the deficiencies and enlighten possible policy improvements. The original intentions and abstracts of 5 different levels of subsidy related policies are summarized, and the effects in reality are attentively analyzed. It can be concluded that subsidy policies have different short-term effect on different renewable energies, and they all show some negative effect to a certain extent. 6 core problems are summarized in this paper, and remedy strategies are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green roof is an effective energy efficiency measure to reduce the building cooling load in summer and heating load in winter, in addition, it can add ecological benefit and landscape value to the community. Therefore, it has attracted extensive attention worldwide. This paper studies the selection of planting materials, plant configuration patterns and plant growth medium of the green roofs in China, and presents the researches on ecological benefits, thermal performance, and applications of the green roofs in China. This paper also introduces and analyzes the green roofs development policies in China, including the incentive mechanism, laws and regulations, and finally presents the analysis and suggestions on their application prospects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main goal of this paper is to argue for the necessity and significance of studying the distributional employment impacts of renewable and new energy development (RNE). Based on the comprehensive review of the methodology and conclusions of existing literatures, this paper builds up an extended input–output model to study RNE’s distributional employment impacts on gender and personnel structure. The case study of China׳s power sector in this paper affirmed earlier doubts that RNE development will indeed aggravate the gender inequality problem and add to the level of mismatch between the structure of labor demand and supply, causing structural unemployment problems. The quantitative analysis in this paper outlined here implies that from 2011 to 2020 the development of RNE will bring about 7 million employment gains, but only 81.8% of which can be realized due to the mismatch problem. The study of China may alert other countries to be less-optimistic about RNE’s employment impacts and reaffirm the need to carry out the distributional employment impacts analysis. This paper concludes with policy suggestions such as providing suitable training and equal promotion opportunities for women, offering courses and vocational trainings to RNE-related majors, in order to reduce the structural unemployment problem and further speed up the development of RNE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decades, solar heat for industrial processes (SHIP) have been rapidly developed and applied, and also getting more and more attention all over the world. China is the largest energy consumer with industry accounting for almost 70% of its total energy consumption. Low- and medium-temperature heat takes up 45% of process heat, covering 50–70% of industrial energy consumption, which provides a favorable condition for solar application in industrial processes. China has built developed some demonstration projects to make industrial processes well integrated with solar heating systems. This paper briefly summarizes the status of China's energy consumption, integration of SHIP, as well as available matching solar technologies. Ten typical industrial sectors are selected to specifically describe their potential of SHIP. Moreover, 26 SHIP cases covering the selected 10 sectors are presented by field researches, with capacity of energy saving and emission reduction previously investigated according to their own proportion of SHIP. The potential of SHIP in the 10 sectors are further predicted by optimistically and conservatively making their proportion in SHIP 5.5% and 2% respectively during the period of 2016–2020. The results show that at least 39.40 million tons of coal equivalent and 98.22 million tons of CO 2 emission is expected to be reduced in 2020 in China's all industrial sectors although solar can meet different proportions of heat demand in different industrial sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latent heat thermal energy storage technologies based on phase change materials (PCMs) are found to be significantly efficient and viable methods for thermal energy storage. These energy storage techniques have been proved to be with positive effects on buildings energy efficiency. The integration of appropriate thermal energy storage system and selection of suitable PCMs plays a very dominating role in the upgrading of energy efficiency. Short and long term storage helps in the reduction of energy demand or shifting peak load for both heating and cooling. However, a comprehensive study for the application of these technologies adopting Chinese built environment is lacking which can relate to climate, energy storage and energy efficiency. The goal of this paper is to provide coherent picture of current status on PCM-based techniques that have been studied with the focus of application in China and analyse the selection and suitability of PCMs and techniques in Chinese regions. The results show that many PCMs and techniques are promising to be used in China however studies can be conducted with the consideration of changing climate rather than winter/summer only. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pumped storage power station (PSPS) is a special power source that has flexible operation modes and multiple functions. With the rapid economic development in China, the energy demand and the peak-valley load difference of the power grid are continuing to increase. Moreover, wind power, nuclear power, and other new energy sources also develop very fast. Developing the PSPS is of great importance to the power source structure adjustment, and the secure and stable operation of the power grids in China in the 21st century. This paper provides a survey of the PSPS development in China. Over the last two decades, China's PSPS has developed quickly. The PSPS installed capacity had reached 21.83 gigawatts (GW) by the end of 2014, ranking among the top in the world. 27 PSPSs have been completed and put into production, and many with the installed capacity of more than 1200 megawatts (MW) are still under construction, including Fengning PSPS. In addition, a lot of sites suitable for the PSPS construction have been planned. With regard to the challenges existing in the exploitation course, some suggestions are proposed. There is a bright future for the PSPS development in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one of the most populous provinces in China, Sichuan is also the most important regions for ecology protection and rural poverty alleviation in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. The rural energy industry of Sichuan Province has a national ecological and political significance for reducing excessive utilization for fossil fuels, protecting ecosystem, fostering equal development for urban-rural economy. However, this industry of Sichuan remains to be deteriorated by multiple risks. Hitherto, risk management research on rural energy industry is rather limited. Therefore, according to the fault tree analysis and catastrophe model, this study has implemented a complete and comprehensive risk management procedure on rural energy industry of Sichuan Province based on data of 31 provinces ranging from 2008 to 2012 in China. Based on the fault tree analysis for risk identification, four categories of risks have been revealed: financial risks, service networks risks, energy provision risks as well as enterprises risks. Furthermore, 13 risk indicators have been identified because they have imposed negative impacts upon rural energy industry in Sichuan to a large extent. The catastrophe model for risk evaluation has presented that the risk value of Sichuan rural energy industry (A) reaches the highest risk level. Simultaneously, financial risks (M1), energy provision risks (M3), enterprises risks (M4) have also been ranked as the highest risk grade. The result of risk response indicates that X9 (poor construction for wind energy provision projects), X13 (low output values for energy-saving stoves and kangs production enterprises), M4 (enterprises risks) have the priorities for risk response. This paper suggests that it is urgent and paramount to establish an exclusive risk supervising center which can integrate government ministries, financial agencies, universities and research institutions, non-government organizations via joint participation and interactive communication in risk identification, risk evaluation, risk response as well as risk supervising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper systematically presents a survey of the empirical literature studying the embodied CO 2 emissions in China’s foreign trade (ECCT). Based on the bibliometric method and the online version of Science Citation Index-Expanded (SCI-E) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), this study summarizes the latest publications regarding ECCT in peer-reviewed journals in terms of quantities, most productive countries, institutions, authors, citations, and disciplines. By using synthetic analysis of keyword frequency, this study reveals the most popular methodologies applied in measuring ECCT, discusses the variation of numerical results in the literature, and reasons and countermeasures for the results uncertainties. Continuous investigation of the literature releases the methodology employed for measuring ECCT becoming more reasonable and the results more critical. However, the numerical results of ECCT are of great discrepancies within given year by different considerations on methodology specification, accounting principles, and data sources and processing. For instance, the estimates of CO 2 embodied in China’s exports changed from 478 Mt to over 3000 Mt and those of in China’s imports ranged from 140 Mt to over 1700 Mt in 2007. Therefore, overcoming data inherent limitations and reducing discrepancies among available databases should be urgently considered. The results imply that the prospective research tendencies on ECCT are to (1) improve China’s regional input-output data and energy intensity data to more precise estimates under global perspective; (2) estimate China’s carbon emission at firm level by different firm ownerships in production and consumption worldwide; (3) assess China’s carbon emission from processing or non-processing trade by compiling more detailed multi-regional input-output table; (4) evaluate city level carbon mitigation capacity in China under global MRIO model; (5) explore new carbon management experience in China’s carbon trading market and new trade expansion policy of ‘ one belt and one road’ in her new growth era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural household energy consumption is an important component of national energy consumption and plays an important role in rural social and ecological environment developments. In this paper, energy consumption of 1440 households in 8 typical counties of 8 China's economic zones was investigated. The investigation data analysis revealed significant difference of different economic zones in rural household energy consumption level and structure. For 8 studying counties, the annual average energy consumption per capita was 26.7 GJ, 10.4 GJ the lowest (Shanghang County) and 86.6 GJ the highest (Shulan County). In energy consumption, straw, biogas, fuel wood and electricity accounted for 44.33%, 23.13%, 12.79% and 9.61%, respectively. Rural families with high incomes preferred commercial energies (e.g. electricity and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG)) to biomass energy (e.g. straw and fuel wood). The traditional biomass energy is still the main energy source for China's rural household. Research results provide references to understand current situations and future development of China's rural household energy consumption, and formulate related energy and environmental policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's transport sector is facing severe energy and environmental challenges. Establishing energy efficiency standards is an essential measure to cope with these challenges. This paper comprehensively reviews the energy efficiency standards in China's road, water, aviation, railway and pipeline transport sectors. Based on the review, it is suggested that (1) the integrity of policy framework should be further improved. Energy efficiency standards-based market access qualification mechanism is quite necessary for all transport sectors, especially the aviation, railway and pipeline transport sectors, where such mechanism is absent. (2) Efforts for improving energy efficiency should be balanced among different transport sectors. Priority should be determined by considering each sector's energy consumption, the cost and potential of energy efficiency improvement, etc. Especially, the major energy-consuming sectors, such as heavy-duty vehicles should have similar priority to passenger vehicles in the overall energy efficiency improvement scheme. (3) The scientific basis for the energy efficiency standards should be enhanced. Policies should be proposed with full considerations of China's context, rather than borrowing the experiences of developed countries. Intelligence from the research community should be incorporated to ensure the rationality of the policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has become the world׳s largest country in steel production and consumption. Steel industry is one of the major high-polluting industries, and serious pollution problems have been caused by steel industry in China. In this paper, we first present a review of the development status and the emissions of China׳s steel industry. Then, the emission reduction measures of China׳s steel industry are analyzed. These measures include the overall actions on emission reduction in China and some actions on emission reduction of China׳s steel industry. Finally, suggestions in five aspects to further promote the emission reduction of China׳s steel industry are proposed and discussed, including eliminating backward steel production capacity, improving the legal system of emission control, strengthening government regulation, improving steel production technology and efficiency, and establishing the national carbon emission trading market of the steel industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Renewable energy is an important factor in achieving a low-carbon economic development path in China. This paper investigates the factors influencing renewable electricity consumption in China. Specifically, the factors that influence the share of renewable electricity in total electricity consumption in China is investigated using data from 1980 to 2011 and employing the Johansen cointegration technique and vector error correction model. The result of the analysis shows that there is a long run relationship between renewable electricity consumption and GDP per capita, trade openness, foreign direct investment, financial development and share of fossil fuel in energy consumption. Economic development and financial development promotes renewable electricity consumption while foreign direct investment, trade openness and the lobby of conventional energy sources undermine the share of renewables in total electricity consumption in China. While the effects of shocks to the other variables appear to die out over time, the “lobby effect” is persistent and explosive. The results also show that there is a uni-directional short run causality from financial development to renewable electricity consumption and from renewable electricity consumption to trade openness. The Chinese government should pursue policies that not only increase the amount of renewable electricity, but also increase the share of renewables in total electricity consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2000, solar thermal utilization (STU) has a great process in China, not only with a large scale commercial development, but also with an increasing number of scientific publications and patent applications. In this paper, several representative technologies of STU in China are studied based on an analysis of the relationship between patents and policies. Patent information of STU is collected and analyzed in terms of the time distribution, type distribution and technical trends. The main driving factor—energy policy—was discussed through the patent analysis. STU patents took off after the millennium and 85.8% of them came from the solar water heater. For conventional technologies, 94.2% of the granted patents were from companies and individuals, and the patents proposed by various research institutions were mainly in the technological beginning and technological maturity. Advanced technologies are still at a growth stage in China, and they have 412 patents in all and 70.5% of the patents were from systematic design and test method. Energy policies have played a significant role in promoting the progress of STU in China. Based on a patent analysis, it can be expected that STU will enter the age of medium-high temperature in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wind power generation has increased rapidly in China over the last decade. In this paper the authors present an extensive survey on the status and development of wind power generation in China. The wind resource distributions in China are presented and assessed, and the 10 GW-scale wind power generation bases are introduced in details. The domestic research status of main components of WP system is then elaborated, followed by an evaluation of the wind power equipment manufacturers. Finally, the outlook for the development of the wind power utilization in China is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electric power industry is a typical industry with high energy consumption and high emissions in China. To relieve the increasing environmental pressures and promote the sustainable development of China’s economy and society, it is urgent to take actions to reduce energy consumption and pollution emissions of China’s electric power industry. In this paper, we first present an overview of the development status of China’s electric power industry, including the total power generating capacity and proportions of different power generation methods, the development of renewable energy power generation, as well as the average utilization hours of different power generation equipment. Then, the development of energy conservation and emissions reduction of China’s electric power industry is studied. The indicators of energy conservation include coal consumption for power supply, power consumption rate of power plants and comprehensive line loss rate; while the contents of emissions reduction include desulfurization, emissions control and the comprehensive utilization of solid waste. Finally, suggestions in five aspects to promote energy conservation and emissions reduction of China’s electric power industry are presented. The five suggestions are improving power generation technologies, expanding renewable energy power generation, optimizing power generation process, strengthening monitoring and regulation, and promoting power generation rights and emissions trading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite reforms, China still largely applies the cost plus pricing mechanism for the energy sector. Government administrative energy pricing leads to energy price distortions, which could result in not only the excessive and wasteful energy consumption, but also environmental deterioration, thereby undermining energy conservation and emission abatement. Using fossil-fuel subsidies as a proxy for the level of energy price distortions, this paper estimates the subsidy of 22 Chinese departments during the period 2006–2010, and adopts the price-gap approach to analyze the impacts of subsidy removal on energy consumption and CO 2 emissions for the various sectors and energy types. The results demonstrate that removing energy subsidies would reduce energy consumption and emissions by 3.77% and 2.85%, respectively, but the effects vary across sectors. The transport, storage and post sector and the electricity, gas and water supply sector are much more affected by energy subsidies removal than other sectors. With respect to energy types, fuel oil and natural gas are sensitive to subsidies, indicating the magnitude of their consumption. This suggests that removing subsidies on these fuel types could significantly reduce CO 2 emissions. Finally, we comprehensively discuss relevant policy issues on energy price formation reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid growing number of automobiles, new energy vehicle is becoming one of approaches to mitigate the dependence of the auto industry on petroleum so as to reduce pollutant emissions. The Chinese government has promulgated a number of policies from the perspectives of industrial development, development plans, demonstration projects, fiscal subsidies and tax incentives with an aim to promote the new energy vehicle industry. This paper presents a comprehensive and critical review of the policy framework for new energy vehicles. The analysis shows that electric vehicle has been assigned a top priority in the future development of the automobile industry in China. Policy guidance and planning has played a vital role to the growth of new energy vehicle industry. However, this industry faces significant challenges related to technologies, industrial chain and social factors. Some core technologies are still in its infancy. Similarly, the market share of new energy vehicles is very small in spite of the preferential policies. The construction of supporting facilities and infrastructures has to be accelerated in order to accommodate the growing demands. There is a long way to go for the industrialization and popularization of new energy vehicles in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between renewable energy consumption and economic growth in China for the period 1977–2011. Autoregressive Distributed Lag approach (ARDL) to cointegration and Johansen cointegration techniques are employed by including intermittent variables namely carbon dioxide emissions and labor. We also employed Granger causality test in order to determine the direction of the causality among the variables. The results show that there is a bi-directional long term causality between renewable energy consumption and economic growth. This finding implies that growing economy in China is propitious for the development of renewable energy sector which in turn helps to boost economic growth. We also find that labor influences renewable energy consumption in the short term. However, there is no evidence of long or short run causality between carbon emissions and renewable energy consumption. This implies that actual level of renewable energy in China is still insignificant and not considerably exploited in order to contribute to the mitigation of carbon dioxide emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All recent analyses acknowledge that environmental resources are in short supply and that it is on them that "carrying capacity" calculations ought to be based. For the specific case of the Chinese society, which is undergoing an unprecedented period of continuous growth, it seems therefore mandatory to alleviate the conflict between high-speed development and available resources. This paper analyzes the variation of the natural resources input into China during years 2000-2007 using the exergy and extended exergy socio-economic metric. Fluxes of materials, labor, capital and environmental remediation expenses were quantified by a numeraire solidly rooted on a second-law metric, so that a new mode of ecological accounting that quantifies both the composition and the proportion of the extended exergy flows can shed light on the total available energy input into the Chinese society. Two new indicators, labor production efficiency and net pro-capite exergy resource input, are proposed to depict the contribution of economic, social and environmental aspects to the usual four production factors and to express the conversion results in transferring efficiency and quantity from material energy to economic output. "Social" extended exergy analysis, applied to each one of the seven sectors of the society, is suggested as an effective method to reveal the energy quality degradation in the resource conversion process at both national and sectoral levels. The comparison of social resource accounting among different societies by using these two indicators may provide useful additional information to evaluate the production conversion coefficients, to assess the environmental impacts and to diagnose possible ecological dysfunctions. In addition, the extended exergy analysis of the Chinese society is helpful in uncovering the long-term resource depletion and promoting efficiency of the resource transformation in the social-economic-environmental system, thus providing a holistic method and a systematic view for decision makers responsible for environmental management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of urbanization and the improvement of living standards of residents in China, the energy consumption and carbon emissions of the building sector is expected to increase in the near future. Nearly or net zero energy buildings have become a hot topic of research to reduce the fossil energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in the building sector. As the largest developing country and carbon emitter around the world, China has also made significant efforts on nearly zero energy buildings in recent decades. The central government has approved many demonstration projects on nearly zero energy buildings in different climate zones for more than ten years. This paper summarizes international definitions of zero-energy buildings, analyzes the latest definition and identifies the boundaries of nearly zero energy buildings in China. It provides an overview of the current situation, detailed policies and building codes of nearly zero energy buildings in China. Suggestions were given on the development and promotion of nearly zero energy buildings in China. These findings in this paper will help to guide the government to implement more efficient and effective policies and building codes of nearly zero-energy buildings in order to reduce carbon emissions in the building sector. • The definitions of ZEB are inconsistent. • Rapid development of ZEB in China is observed. • The current situation of zero energy building in China is presented. • The building codes and policies of ZEB from Chinese central and local governments are summarized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]