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In view of the climate emergency, it is necessary to model and forecast road transport emissions for implementing more effective climate policy. This paper fills an important research gap by quantifying the challenges, barriers and remedies of achieving road transport emission reduction and air quality improvement in developing countries. It contributes to the debate on top-down and bottom-up approaches to reconcile carbon and other transport related emissions. China and India are chosen as case studies. Using various official statistics and proxy variables, we estimate and compare the road transport carbon emissions of the two countries systematically from 2009 to 2020. Insights from detailed mode-specific estimations of the bottom-up approach are valuable for targeted policies and measures. An analysis of the major components of road transport carbon emissions points to strategies of promoting electric vehicles, reducing transport demand, accelerating modal shift to low-carbon modes, and cleaner electricity to achieve climate policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reliable energy statistics serve as the foundation and starting point for understanding the climate policies of any country. As the most comprehensive sources of energy data for China, China Energy Statistics Yearbooks (ESY), published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), underwent three major revisions since 2005. This paper analyzes how these three major revisions correspond to data on China's energy use from 1996 to 2012, and theirs impacts on CO 2 emissions, emission intensity and the share of non-fossil energy in total energy consumption, which are key indicators of China's climate policies. Some notable changes include CO 2 emissions for 2012, which increased by 594 Million tons – a figure equivalent to South Korea's annual emissions, which implies that China's emissions at peak level will be higher than previous estimation. Meanwhile, revised emission intensity data show a higher amount and lower decreasing rate, which means that China's achievements in decreasing emission intensity during 2005–2012 have been overestimated, while future difficulties for achieving the goal of 40–45% reduction will be greater. On the share of non-fossil fuel energy in China's total energy mix, the adjustments increased the indicator by 1.26%, reflecting the fact that China's effort in developing non-fossil energy had been underestimated. Discrepancies in reported scattered coal in different statistics versions are the main contributors to these changes. To further enhance the reliability of its energy statistics, and thereby its climate policies, China should remove incentives for misreporting through legal means, and make the technical system for data collection more comprehensive and accurate, with particular emphasis on scattered coal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because China has emerged as the largest greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter in total annual emissions, to accelerate the pace of GHG emission reduction in China is important to the success of global efforts in addressing climate change. Carbon trading is a market mechanism and key instrument in the mitigation of climate change. This paper explores the policy process and development state to date of China׳s carbon-trade market to understand the emergence and development of that market and to understand what barriers are hampering China׳s carbon-trade market development. To achieve this goal, this paper introduces and analyzes China׳s status in the international market, examines the factors driving carbon-market launching by the Chinese government, and traces the development of mandatory carbon-emission trading and voluntary emission trading. It is argued that China׳s carbon-trading market is confronted with challenges such as the absence of a functional carbon-trading market, inaccuracy of the quota allocation, an imperfect trading mechanism, and lagging legislation. At the present stage, shortcomings such as having no real-time carbon price and dominated spot transactions differentiate China׳s trade market substantially from a functional system. A quick market integration of China׳s carbon market appears remote. It is suggested that specific measures be taken to promote the development of the Chinese carbon-trading market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New developments in consumption-based emissions accounting suggest that the reductions claimed by wealthy, environmentally progressive nations have often come at the expense of increased emissions elsewhere – and thus net growth in global GHG concentrations. This paper traces Sweden's attempts to translate growing recognition of displaced emissions into national environmental policy. Drawing on multi-sited ethnographic research and policy analysis in Sweden and China, we argue that while the logical implications of consumption-based analyses point to the need to address production and consumption as an integrated system, complex governance challenges and the political precariousness of these ideas have thus far limited policy to the reinvention of consumer awareness campaigns and an international extension of long-standing ecological efficiency efforts. We argue that consumption-based emissions indicators justify more ambitious demand-side policy response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An understanding of how storage technologies coordinate with other power resources to deliver value for electricity market participants in compliance with climate policy will be vital as policy makers seek to decarbonize electricity generation in a cost-effective way. This paper adopts a game-theoretic electricity market model to evaluate the interaction between pumped hydro storage, electric vehicles, and climate policy under a range of assumptions regarding market power and ownership of generation and storage assets. Using data from the Chinese electricity market, it shows that climate policy may not incentivize storage utilization especially when firms that hold a dominant position in storage operation own a limited portfolio of generation assets. In addition, electric vehicles may not improve consumers' welfare in the presence of pumped hydro storage when perfect competition exists in the market. These results have significant implications for public policy. • A game-theoretic electricity market model is evaluated for China. • The interaction between storage, electric vehicles, and climate policy is studied. • Climate policy may not incentivize storage use depending on the ownership of assets. • The benefits of electric vehicles decline in the presence of pumped hydro storage. • Perfect competition may not always create the best choices for consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]