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China is transforming the growth model and speeding up industrial structural improvement and upgrading now and in the coming years, which means the slowdown of economic growth and more serious environmental costs in economic and social development would be the "New Normal." As the world's largest energy consumer and carbon‐emitting country, China's emissions reduction commitments are crucial to global greenhouse gas emissions mitigation, so there is a profusion of research focused on China's economy‐environment nexus. Among which, the dynamic relationship of carbon emission and economic growth and its evolution combined the national, regional, provincial data have not been discussed thoroughly. This paper analyses the elasticity of economic performance of carbon emissions based on 30 Chinese provincial data from 2000 to 2016; furthermore, a panel vector autoregressive model is constructed to discuss the interactions of variables within environmental economic system. It is concluded that China is experiencing a turning point from weak decoupling to strong decoupling in recent years, and its economic performance of carbon emissions has been gradually improved with larger disparities among provinces though. Regression result confirms the role of the energy mix on carbon emissions, and it also indicates that the impact of most factors influencing that have been discussed in previous studies may not be direct, prominent, and for long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With important implications for global climate change mitigation, the development of a cap-and-trade emission trading scheme (ETS) in China is embedded in distinctive political, economic, and institutional contexts and has been attracting increasing attention in recent years. To offer a clear perspective on current research progress, this paper systematically reviews the recent literature on China’s ETS from three main aspects: mechanism design, policy and regional linkages, as well as impact assessment. The current research consensuses are summarized based upon detailed literature analyses and commentaries, and together with observations of international experience and China’s actual condition, the paper provides policy proposals for the development of China’s national ETS during 2016–2020. Finally, several important controversies in the current literature are discussed with regard to the practical demands of China’s ETS development. Five pressing topics that need to be further studied in the coming years are highlighted, including cap setting, allowance allocation among sectors and enterprises, carbon pricing, policy package and unified carbon market construction, as well as ex-ante and ex-post impact assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recognizing the industrial sector's high energy use and vast potential for energy saving, many national governments have established voluntary or negotiated agreements that set quantitative energy-saving targets for individual industrial enterprises. The most commonly used energy-saving targets worldwide are volume and energy intensity targets. Since 2006, the Chinese government has set mandatory, enterprise-level energy-saving targets in terms of the “amount of energy saved”; this represents a unique category that differs from both volume and energy intensity targets. Based on first-hand data collected at ten case enterprises, this paper represents one of the first attempts to verify the reliability of the amount of energy saved data reported by the Chinese government and to rigorously and systematically investigate the inherent weaknesses of the amount of energy saved targets through a comparison with the mainstream categories of energy-saving targets. The ten case enterprises reported four different types of amount of energy saved. While all of the case enterprises claimed full achievement of their amount of energy saved targets, four enterprises exaggerated their performance by violating the National Standard for Calculating the Amount of Energy Saved of Enterprises. The paper thus hypothesizes that the National Top-1000 Enterprise Program's alleged achievement of performance 65% higher relative to its amount of energy saved target is likely an overestimation. Although amount of energy saved targets constitute an innovative energy-saving indicator, they do not represent a step forward from conventional volume and intensity targets because of the following four weaknesses: 1) amount of energy saved targets provide limited potential for comparison given the different types of amount of energy saved and the different calculation methods, 2) they generate uncertain environmental outcomes as it is possible to meet a portion of an amount of energy saved target through production volume expansion, 3) they are difficult to enforce due to the complexity of data verification on the part of local government agencies, and 4) they are poorly correlated with the national target for reducing energy intensity. Amount of energy saved targets should therefore be replaced with “double-control” targets that impose both volume and intensity targets on industrial enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Theses on China's low-carbon economy focus on the driving forces of carbon emissions, energy–carbon efficiency, and the carbon–economy nexus. Meanwhile, comprehensive frameworks that assess China's green economy and also analyze its driving forces are lacking. This paper constructs a green productivity index based on the Global Malmquist–Luenberger productivity index to evaluate the development of the low-carbon economy in China. A panel vector auto-regression model is adopted to further analyze the endogenous interactions and dynamic relationships among aspects of the green economy and its influencing factors. Empirical results show that China has seen a balanced development of green economic growth in 2000–2016, achieved in a series of clear stages. To maintain the sustainable growth of the low-carbon economy in the future, China must rely more on technological progress. This research also makes some important discoveries that have not been found in previous studies: the impact of China's industrial structure and energy consumption structure on the green economy are short term, having a duration of impact of approximately four years. Finally, we provide an assessment of provincial green economy development and describe the corresponding policy implications. Graphical abstract Image Highlights • A comprehensive analysis of China's green economy. • A slack-based Global Malmquist–Luenberger index is adopted to calculate the Green Productivity Index in China. • The stage characteristics of green economic development are identified. • A panel vector autoregressive model is used to analyze the interactions among aspects of the environmental economic system. • The findings that the impact duration of energy structure, industry structure, and urbanization on the green economy is about four years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In assuming its commitments to the reduction of CO 2 emissions, China is contributing great efforts to mitigate CO 2 emissions across its all economic sectors including construction industry. The Chinese construction industry is one of the main contributors to CO 2 emissions in China. This paper presents an empirical study on the CO 2 emissions in the Chinese construction industry across the period of 1995–2011. The input-output analysis method is employed for conducting the study. The data used for analysis are mainly collected from the world input-output database. The analysis results demonstrate that the CO 2 emissions in the Chinese construction industry increased by 388.7% from 1995 to 2011, reached to 3035.9 Mt in 2011. However, the carbon intensity in the construction industry decreased by 46.9% from 1995 to 2011, recorded as 0.00198 Mt/million dollars in 2011. The indirect CO 2 emissions were the majority of the construction CO 2 emissions, accounting for over 95% during 1995–2011. The process-based CO 2 emissions contributed 8.7%–12.6% of the total construction CO 2 emissions during 1995–2011. The electricity, gas and water supply industry, the other non-metallic mineral industry, and the basic metals and fabricated metal industry were the main contributors to the construction CO 2 emissions during 1995–2009. This study presents a comprehensive picture on the CO 2 emissions in the Chinese construction industry, which provides valuable references both to further study and to formulate more effective policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews China's future fossil fuel supply from the perspectives of physical output and net energy output. Comprehensive analyses of physical output of fossil fuels suggest that China's total oil production will likely reach its peak, at about 230 Mt/year (or 9.6 EJ/year), in 2018; its total gas production will peak at around 350 Bcm/year (or 13.6 EJ/year) in 2040, while coal production will peak at about 4400 Mt/year (or 91.9 EJ/year) around 2020 or so. In terms of the forecast production of these fuels, there are significant differences among current studies. These differences can be mainly explained by different ultimately recoverable resources assumptions, the nature of the models used, and differences in the historical production data. Due to the future constraints on fossil fuels production, a large gap is projected to grow between domestic supply and demand, which will need to be met by increasing imports. Net energy analyses show that both coal and oil and gas production show a steady declining trend of EROI (energy return on investment) due to the depletion of shallow-buried coal resources and conventional oil and gas resources, which is generally consistent with the approaching peaks of physical production of fossil fuels. The peaks of fossil fuels production, coupled with the decline in EROI ratios, are likely to challenge the sustainable development of Chinese society unless new abundant energy resources with high EROI values can be found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In March 2011, China’s central government set a new challenging target of reducing its energy intensity by 16% during 2011–2015, after it had achieved a reduction of 19.1% during 2006–2010. And this new target was assigned to provincial authorities in August 2011. However, China’s provincial energy-economic developments are unbalanced and different provinces have different key sectors for energy conservation. Most previous studies focused on provincial energy efficiency at the aggregate level, or the three-industry level (or one-digit level). However, whether for policy decision or academic research, it is necessary to further subdivide the sectors. In this paper, we use three indicators (Gini Coefficient, energy consumption share and energy intensity) to compare provincial energy conservation potentials at the two-digit sector level. To our knowledge, this paper is the first one to identify the keys for energy conversation across the 31 provinces×65 sectors. And the results are shown in visualized maps and matrix tables to help identify the key province×sectors for energy conservation easier. This also helps the central and provincial governments to distinguish key sectors when they monitor the energy conservation progress. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper links theoretical perspectives from energy efficiency economics with those observed from corporate environmental strategy to develop a framework for explaining energy efficiency strategies by firms in response to national policies and local regulations in China. The framework is refined through analytic generalization of 20 cases from four industries and four cities in Jiangsu Province, and reveals two strategies: 1) firms with moderate institutional pressure seek incremental competitiveness by adopting energy-saving technologies, which is reinforced by their informational, organizational, and financing capabilities, and facilitated by voluntary policies and industrial competition; 2) firms with survival risk or development constraints under regulation seek a position favored by local governments by replacing old plant and equipment with larger, more efficient ones and contributing to the local community. The Chinese case studies reveal a strong institutional impact on firms' choice of business strategies and particularly the positioning strategy. The identified business strategies shed additional light on the effectiveness and implications of different policy instruments for energy efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Recently, energy production in China fell behind energy consumption. This poses important challenges for the rapidly growing Chinese economy. As a consequence, the causal relationship between energy consumption and GDP is an important empirical issue. This paper examines Granger causality between energy consumption and GDP in China using province-level data. The current paper extends the Granger causality analysis employed in previous studies by taking into account panel heterogeneity. Specifically, four different causal relationships are examined: homogeneous non-causality (HNC), homogeneous causality (HC), heterogeneous non-causality (HENC), and heterogeneous causality (HEC). HC and HNC hypotheses are rejected for causality in either direction, from GDP to energy or from energy to GDP, which implies that the panel made up of Chinese provinces is not homogeneous. Then, heterogeneous causality tests (HEC ad HENC) are conducted for each province. For the causality running from GDP to energy, 19 provinces exhibit HEC and 11 provinces exhibit HENC. For the causality running from energy to GDP, 14 provinces exhibit HEC and 16 provinces exhibit HENC. The results suggest that the Chinese government should incorporate a regional perspective while formulating and implementing energy policies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In recent years, China has started to change its growth strategy to a more sustainable model in response to the limits-to-growth dilemma. Specifically, the national policy advocates to promote the use of green-manufacturing technologies through demonstration projects, and to incentivize Chinese manufacturers to adopt these green-technologies that are also encouraged by local governments. These green technologies can increase the economic gains of manufacturers by reducing costs on energy consumption and shift away from selling low-margin products. However, the local authorities often encounter obstacles when implementing policies for promoting these technologies among manufacturing firms. This paper explores the factors that affect the decision-making of user firms throughout the policy implementation process. Based on the econometric analysis of the survey for China's electric motors upgrading project in Guangdong Province, this study shows that three key factors are helpful in the local government's effort to implement the national project, i.e. manufacturers' awareness, the understanding of the energy-efficiency technology, and the long-term macroeconomic benefits. In addition, encouraging the participation of financial institutions is especially useful for local governments to convince small-and-medium sized firms. These findings are beneficial for local implementation of green-manufacturing technology diffusion policies in China and have worldwide policy implication as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a decomposition analysis of energy-related CO2 emission in China for the period 1991–2006 divided into three equal time intervals. The complete decomposition method developed by Sun is used to analyze the nature of the four factors: CO2 intensity, energy intensity, structural changes and economic activity. The results show that economic activity has the largest positive effect in CO2 emission changes in all the major economic sectors and China has achieved a considerable decrease in CO2 emission mainly due to the improved energy intensity. However, the impact of CO2 intensity and structural changes is relatively small. Structural changes only exhibit positive effect to the CO2 mitigation in agricultural sector, and CO2 intensity also contributes to the decrease of CO2 emission in transportation sector. Moreover, a formula about CO2 mitigation is presented in this paper, which shows that China has made a significant contribution to reducing global CO2 emission. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This work investigates different scenarios for electric vehicle (EV) deployment in China and explores the implications thereof with regard to energy portfolio, economics and the environment. Specifically, we investigate how to better deliver the value of EVs by improving designs in the power system and charging strategies, given expected developments by 2030 in both the power system and EV penetration levels. The impact of EV charging is quantified by applying an integrated transportation-power system model on a set of scenarios which represent uncertainties in charging strategies. We find that deploying EVs essentially shifts the use of gasoline to coal-fired power generation in China, thus leading to more coal consumption and CO 2 emissions of the power system. Economically, EVs outperform gasoline-powered vehicles in terms of average fueling costs. However, the impact of EVs in terms of CO 2 emissions at the national level largely depends on the charging strategy. Specifically, controlled charging results in more CO 2 emissions associated with EVs than uncontrolled charging, as it tends to feed EVs with electricity produced by cheap yet low-efficiency coal power plants located in regions where coal prices are low. Still, compared with uncontrolled charging, controlled charging shows absolute advantages in: (1) mitigating the peak load arising from EV charging; (2) facilitating RES generation; and (3) reducing generation costs and EV charging costs. Hence, in light of this trade-off of controlled charging with the goals of energy security, economic efficiency and reducing environmental impacts, policy interventions in the Chinese power system should opt for controlled charging strategies in order to best realize the benefits of EVs. Accordingly, this paper proposes that increasing the use of cleaner forms of electricity generation, such as RES power and gas power, and establishing energy efficiency and CO 2 emission regulations in power dispatch are critical for China. Lastly, this work illustrates what the optimized charging profiles from the power system perspective look like for different regions. These results can inform Chinese policy makers in creating a better integration of the transportation and the power system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2003, Mainland China has been promoting the public–private partnership (PPP) procurement model in the waste-to-energy incineration sector to reduce the waste burying rate and improve environmental quality. Five critical risk factors (CRFs) that affect the construction and operation of waste-to-energy incineration projects have been identified from real-life risk events of 14 PPP waste-to-energy incineration plants through content analysis. These risk factors are insufficient waste supply , disposal of non - licensed waste , environmental risk , payment risk , and lack of supporting infrastructure . A recently completed PPP waste-to-energy incineration plant, the Shanghai Tianma project, was investigated to learn from the effective management of CRFs. First-hand data about the Shanghai Tianma project was collected, with a focus on project negotiation and concession agreement. Lessons learned about risk management were acquired. This paper presents a detailed study of the contractual structure, risk sharing scheme, risk response measures to CRFs, and project transfer of a PPP project. The study results will provide governments with management implications to prepare equitable concession agreements and benefit private investors by effectively mitigating and managing risks in future PPP waste-to-energy incineration projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing conflict between economic growth, energy and environment in China has restrained the country's economic development. In this work we investigated the interaction among the Chinese economy, energy production and consumption and the impacts of concomitant air emissions from 2000 to 2011, using an indicator system based on energy, emergy and money units. The results show that China's rapid economic growth has promoted tremendous expansion in energy production and consumption, which have led to increasing the impact of emissions in this study period. During the time examined, energy production and use efficiencies and the structure of the energy sector improved slightly; the self-sufficiency of energy use fluctuated, as petroleum took on an increasingly strong dependence on imports; fossil energy, mainly coming from coal, still has a majority share in energy production and consumption of the nation; the environmental loading intensity of energy consumption decreased slightly while that of energy production increased; most of the impacts of energy-related emissions are derived from their impact on human health; the impact of emissions from energy production made an increasing contribution to the total impact. Generally speaking, China's economic growth still heavily depends on energy-intensive industries that put great pressure on energy supply and pollution control. Although China has made obvious progress in energy mix optimization to save energy and reduce emissions, the pace of improvement still fell behind that of economic growth. Finally, this paper discussed some related issues and presented corresponding suggestions to further coordinate the relationship between the economy, energy production and consumption and the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Renewable energy is one of the possible solutions when addressing climate change. Today, large-scale renewable energy integration needs to include the experience to balance the discrepancy between electricity demand and supply. The electrification of transportation may have the potential to deal with this imbalance and to reduce its high dependence on oil production. For this reason, it is interesting to analyse the extent to which transport electrification can further the renewable energy integration. This paper quantifies this issue in Inner Mongolia, where the share of wind power in the electricity supply was 6.5% in 2009 and which has the plan to develop large-scale wind power. The results show that electric vehicles (EVs) have the ability to balance the electricity demand and supply and to further the wind power integration. In the best case, the energy system with EV can increase wind power integration by 8%. The application of EVs benefits from saving both energy system cost and fuel cost. However, the negative consequences of decreasing energy system efficiency and increasing the CO2 emission should be noted when applying the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle (HFCV). The results also indicate that developing renewable energy is crucial for transportation electrification. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper estimates the affordability of increased energy costs for Chinese companies due to the possible introduction of carbon pricing policies. The data were collected from 121 valid respondents in Taicang, China, using a multiple-bounded discrete choice (MBDC) format. Estimations indicate that a mean of 8.5% in energy cost increase would be acceptable for the surveyed companies on the whole. Companies from chemical and dyeing industries expressed a slightly higher affordability, with the mean of acceptable energy cost increase being 9.8% and 9.4% respectively. Econometric analysis identified two determinants of affordability for companies. One is the current energy price level, having a significant but negative relationship with affordability. The other is the energy management strategies of companies, significantly and positively associated with affordability. Calculations indicate that the mean of affordable energy cost increases for companies roughly equals a carbon price of 60 CNY/t-CO2 (about 9 USD/t-CO2). This result may be used as a referendum during the development of carbon tax policy and the establishment of a domestic carbon emissions trading scheme in China from the perspective of individual companies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: China has set ambitious goals to increase the use of renewable energy. Developing renewables in rural areas is also one of the most important energy strategies. This paper examines rural social acceptance of renewable energy deployment taking Shandong as a case study via a field questionnaire survey. Theory of planned behavior is adopted to establish an analytical framework, and a logit model is used to examine possible determinants of local social acceptance. The results show that rural residents are generally supportive renewable energy development given its positive impacts on environment. A stated willingness to pay more for renewable electricity is taken as a variable representing an individual’s behavioral intention. The probability of occurrence of positive intention is found to increase with household income, individual knowledge level and belief about costs of renewable energy use but decrease with individual age. Residents with higher level of income are more likely to be willing to pay more for green electricity, so are the younger people. Enhancive knowledge and understanding about renewable energy (for instance, the cost) would be conducive to win public acceptance of renewable energy deployment. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper, we present a process-based model to estimate the well-to-tank (WTT) costs of vehicle fuels (gasoline and diesel). The model breaks down the WTT process into four stages, i.e., crude oil sourcing (import and extraction), crude oil transportation, crude oil refining, and vehicle fuel transportation and distribution, which can provide high-resolution data for the WTT cost components. Using this model, we further develop an empirical study of China. The results obtained from the study indicate that the price of imported crude oil is the dominant factor affecting the WTT costs of vehicle fuels in China and that the cost of crude oil refining also has a relatively large influence. By comparing the costs with the prices of vehicle fuels under the volatile price of imported crude oil, we illustrate the unstable margin caused by China’s current pricing policy, which causes a distorted price signal and fiscal risks. The key findings derived from the empirical study reveal that the WTT cost is an essential guide for altering the vehicle fuel price with the aim of not only smoothing the impacts caused by the volatile price of crude oil price but also reflecting the correct oil price signal and reducing the fiscal risks. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]