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As an effective policy instrument to reduce energy consumption and CO emissions, the effects of fuel taxation on income distribution have been the critical factor that determines whether a fuel tax could be acceptable in China. This paper estimates the distributional effects of a fuel tax on households in various income groups by using the input-output model. Results indicate that the total distributional effects of fuel taxes are moderately progressive; that is, high-income households would bear more tax burden compared to low-income households. In addition, the indirect effects are larger than the direct effects. Moreover, the Kakwani and Suits indices show that fuel excise taxes are progressive, implying that a fuel tax could improve the unfair income distribution. In order to reduce the negative impact of fuel taxes on low-income households, it is necessary for the government to design a reasonable redistribution mechanism of tax revenue or adopt compensatory measures such as the transfer payments targeted on low-income groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The carbon emissions of the power industry account for over 50% of China's total carbon emissions, so achieving carbon peak and carbon neutrality in the power sector is crucial. This study aims to simulate the impacts of three energy policies—carbon constraints, the development of a high proportion of renewable energy, and carbon trading—on China's energy transition, economic development, and the power sector's energy mix. Through the construction of a dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model for China and its integration with the SWITCH-China electricity model, the impact of diverse energy policies on China's energy transition, economic progress, and the power mix within the electricity industry has been simulated. The integration of the SWITCH-China model can address the limitations of the CGE model in providing a detailed understanding of the specific intricacies of the electricity sector. The results indicate that increasing the stringency of carbon restrictions compels a reduction in fossil energy use, controlling the output of coal-fired power units, and thereby reducing carbon emissions. The development of a high proportion of renewable energy enhances the cleanliness of the power sector's generation structure, further promoting the national energy transition. Implementing a carbon trading policy, where the entire industry shares the burden of carbon reduction costs, can effectively mitigate the economic losses of the power sector. Finally, the policies to further enhance the implementation of carbon trading policies, strengthen effective governmental regulation, and escalate the deployment of renewable energy sources are recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identifying the impact path on factors of CO emissions is crucial for the government to take effective measures to reduce carbon emissions. The most existing research focuses on the total influence of factors on CO emissions without differentiating between the direct and indirect influence. Moreover, scholars have addressed the relationships among energy consumption, economic growth, and CO emissions rather than estimating all the causal relationships simultaneously. To fill this research gaps and explore overall driving factors' influence mechanism on CO emissions, this paper utilizes a path analysis model with latent variables (PA-LV) to estimate the direct and indirect effect of factors on China's energy-related carbon emissions and to investigate the causal relationships among variables. Three key findings emanate from the analysis: (1) The change in the economic growth pattern inhibits the growth rate of CO emissions by reducing the energy intensity; (2) adjustment of industrial structure contributes to energy conservation and CO emission reduction by raising the proportion of the tertiary industry; and (3) the growth of CO emissions impacts energy consumption and energy intensity negatively, which results in a negative impact indirectly on itself. To further control CO emissions, the Chinese government should (1) adjust the industrial structure and actively develop its tertiary industry to improve energy efficiency and develop low-carbon economy, (2) optimize population shifts to avoid excessive population growth and reduce energy consumption, and (3) promote urbanization steadily to avoid high energy consumption and low energy efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Owing to fast-growing vehicle sales, China began in 2001 to develop vehicle energy conservation policies to help solve oil security and carbon dioxide (CO) emissions problems, and it has established a vehicle fuel consumption regulation system to contain vehicle fuel consumption growth. This regulation system includes technical standards, management rules, and fiscal policies. The system covers passenger cars, light-duty commercial vehicles, and heavy-duty commercial vehicles. This paper presents fuel consumption test methods, fuel consumption limits, and fuel consumption labeling standards for these vehicle categories. It also discusses the enforcement of these standards and their associated impacts on oil savings and CO emission reductions, identifies problems with the policy implementation from both technical and administrative perspectives, and proposes recommendations to improve the current vehicle fuel consumption regulation system. In particular, we recommend that the central government improve the jurisdictional authority for vehicle energy conservation by clearly clarifying the responsibilities of different ministries, develop a long-term vision and middle-term targets to guide the policy and technology development, and strengthen the policy enforcement monitoring and evaluation. [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]

This paper proposes an approach to calculate the time series of cumulative carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions between 1995 and 2014 based on industrial energy consumption data in three Eastern China jurisdictions in Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang during these two decades. Using the Hodrick-Prescott filter, the fluctuation components of the cumulative CO 2 -emission time-series data in the three provinces are obtained. Subsequently, a grey correlation-based change-point search algorithm is used to determine change-points in these data. Additionally, the CO 2 -emission time-series is divided into stages based on the change-points. The cycle characteristics of national energy policies, laws, and regulations are compared with those of the cumulative CO 2 -emission cycle of the three provinces to analyse the impact of energy policies on CO 2 emissions. This study shows that, although the industrial structure and trends in the CO 2 emission time-series data of the three provinces are different, their cumulative CO 2 -emission cycle remains the same from 1995 to 2014. The variation characteristics of the cumulative CO 2 emissions for each cycle during this period are well aligned with the stage characteristics of energy policies, laws, and regulations, indicating that energy policies play a consistent role in regulating such emissions. This study examines low-carbon production and sustainable energy development, and offers suggestions for issuing and perfecting energy policies, laws, and regulations, considering the indicators of energy consumption and CO 2 emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forecasting CO 2 emissions in China always has been of great significance as it could help the government to improve energy policies and plans. To this end, a novel grey multivariable model is designed in this paper. Compared with the conventional grey multivariable model, which has certain drawbacks of inaccurate prediction and poor adaptability that restrict their applications in practical cases, the proposed model can make three improvements: first, an optimized grey model having a modified background value is proposed to predict the trends of the driving variables. Second, the novel grey multivariable model is established, combined with the changing trends of driving variables. Third, the adjustment coefficient in the new model is optimized to obtain optimal values for the time response function. To demonstrate its efficacy, the proposed model is employed to reproduce and predict the CO 2 emissions from fuel combustion compared with four benchmark models—the results show that the new model yields more accurate forecasting results than the competing models. Eventually, the new model will be used to quantify future Chinese CO 2 emissions from fuel combustion from 2014 to 2020, and the forecasted results can provide a solid basis for formulating environmental policies and energy consumption plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Applying a parameterized directional distance function approach, this paper estimates the regional total factor efficiency and pollutants’ marginal abatement costs (MACs) in China covering the years 2003–2012. We find that if all provinces produced on the production frontier, China could potentially conserve energy consumption by 29.5%, and reduce emissions of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ) by 28.2% and 27.4%, respectively. The provinces in southeast coastal area performed better than the rest of the country. The bulk of potentials for energy saving and pollution reduction appeared in middle Yellow River, northwest, north coast, and northeast areas. The MAC of CO 2 increased steadily and continuously, while that of SO 2 showed a sharp increase throughout the whole study period. The average MACs of CO 2 and SO 2 for the whole country were 5512 Yuan/tonne and 154,395 Yuan/tonne, respectively. The MACs of SO 2 in different areas were remarkably unbalanced. Our estimates suggest that the opportunities for double dividend of economic production and pollution reduction are potentially achievable. Policymakers are required to facilitate technology transfer and encourage scientific and technological cooperation between inter- and intra-area. Additionally, they should also consider the regional heterogeneity when making the reduction allocations within the economic sectors and make the market prices of pollutants flexible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) and scenario analysis have been applied respectively to analyze the impact of CO 2 -emission and its potential reduction in China׳s power industry. According to the results of LMDI, there are six factors that affect the carbon emission in the power industry. Electricity intensity (EI), and economic activity (EA) are the primary driving factors for the increment in emissions, accounting for 42.33% and 57.05% of the total increment during 1985 to 2011. Results also demonstrated that energy efficiency (EE) contributed 13.54% abatement during 1985 to 2011, and will play a key role in emission abatement in the future. Furthermore, the paper estimate the trend of power sector׳s carbon dioxide emission under three scenarios (basic, moderate and optimum) in order to determine the mitigation potential. The potential mitigation rate will equal to 22.03% and 37.57% in 2020 in Case A and Case B respectively in 2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzed the changes in carbon-dioxide (CO 2 ) emission in China׳s cement industry over the period 1991–2010. Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) was applied for the decomposition analysis. Five determinants were examined and the results divided into five time intervals, according to China׳s five-year economic plans. The results show that labor productivity was the major driving force of increase in CO 2 emission in China׳s cement industry, and energy intensity was the major contributor to CO 2 emission reduction. The other three factors also generated certain level of effects. This article provides some policy suggestions which could be adopted to reduce CO 2 emission in this energy-intensive industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With rapid economic growth, China is facing tremendous pressures of emission–reduction and serious income inequality issues. The existing research is concerned with the relationships between income inequality and CO 2 emissions in recent years, but little attention has been paid to the regional differences in China. This paper investigated the impact of income and its inequality on CO 2 emissions at the national and regional levels using the panel data from 1995 to 2010 in China. The empirical results show that income growth increases China’s CO 2 emissions. The effects of income growth on CO 2 emissions vary across regions. Further, the impact of income inequality on CO 2 emissions in the Eastern region is greater than that in the Western region. This research reveals that a more equitable income distribution may help control CO 2 emissions in developing China, and there is a win–win situation of income redistribution and emission–reduction. Our findings merit particular attention from policy makers in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]