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The current nationally determined contributions, pledged by the countries under the Paris Agreement, are far from limiting climate change to below 2 ∘C temperature increase by the end of the century. The necessary ratcheting up of climate policy is projected to come with a wide array of additional benefits, in particular a reduction of today's 4.5 million annual premature deaths due to poor air quality. This paper therefore addresses the question how climate policy and air pollution–related health impacts interplay until 2050 by developing a comprehensive global modeling framework along the cause and effect chain of air pollution–induced social costs. We find that ratcheting up climate policy to a 2 ∘ compliant pathway results in welfare benefits through reduced air pollution that are larger than mitigation costs, even with avoided climate change damages neglected. The regional analysis demonstrates that the 2 ∘C pathway is therefore, from a social cost perspective, a "no-regret option" in the global aggregate, but in particular for China and India due to high air quality benefits, and also for developed regions due to net negative mitigation costs. Energy and resource exporting regions, on the other hand, face higher mitigation cost than benefits. Our analysis further shows that the result of higher health benefits than mitigation costs is robust across various air pollution control scenarios. However, although climate mitigation results in substantial air pollution emission reductions overall, we find significant remaining emissions in the transport and industry sectors even in a 2 ∘C world. We therefore call for further research in how to optimally exploit climate policy and air pollution control, deriving climate change mitigation pathways that maximize co-benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Balancing China's energy needs to fuel its rapid economic growth with the resulting potential impacts of climate change presents an enormous climate policy dilemma, not simply for China but for the entire world. This is the major reason why the role of China is an issue of perennial concerns at international climate change negotiations. In response to these concerns and to put China in a positive position, this paper maps out a realistic roadmap for China's specific climate commitments toward 2050. Taking many factors into consideration, the paper argues that China needs to take on absolute emissions caps around 2030. However, it is hard to imagine how China could apply the brakes so sharply as to switch from rapid emissions growth to immediate emissions cuts, without passing through several intermediate phases. To that end, the paper envisions that China needs the following three transitional periods of increasing climate obligations before taking on absolute emissions caps that will lead to the global convergence of per capita emissions by 2050: First, further credible energy conservation commitments starting in 2013 and aimed at cutting China's carbon intensity by 46-50% by 2020; second, voluntary 'no lose' emission targets starting in 2018; and third, binding carbon intensity targets as its international commitment starting in 2023. Overall, this proposal is a balanced reflection of respecting China's rights to grow and recognizing China's growing responsibility for increasing greenhouse gas emissions as China is on its way to becoming the world's largest economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study intends to assess the role of financial decentralization on carbon taxation and carbon emission to recommend the way forwards for economic recovery. To estimate the nexus, study applied the cointegration analysis technique, CGE estimation model, long-run analysis using t-CGE model, and robustness analysis technique on Chinese data. Research findings declare that financial decentralization has significant role on extending the carbon taxation in China and financial decentralization supported 14.92% to expand carbon taxation throughout the Chinese industries. In such industries, pollution emission industries are the top of the list including transportation industry and other manufacturing companies. Overall, manufacturing industries size is about 78% and 11% size of transportation industry is included. Correspondingly, the findings also revealed that financial decentralization supports climate change mitigation with 29% and carbon taxation limits carbon emission with 44% in Chinese industries. Study directs to the stakeholders to enhance carbon taxation schemes in all sectors of the all the industries of China and come up with the viable policy action so that the desired sustainable development goals may achieve effectively. Hence, stakeholders need to consider recommendations of preceding research to enhance green economic recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relevance and cost-effectiveness are key criteria for policymakers to select appropriate policy and economic instruments for reducing carbon emissions. Here we assess the applicability of carbon finance instruments for the improvement in building energy efficiency by adopting the high efficiency standards as well as advanced energy supply systems, building on a case study in a northern city in China. We find that upgrading the current Chinese BEE standard to one of the best practices in the world coupled with the state-of-the-art energy supply system implies an abatement cost at 16US$/tCO, which is compatible with the international carbon market price. The institutional reorganization turns out to be indispensable to facilitate the implementation of the proposed scheme of local government-led energy efficiency programme in the form of programmatic CDM in China's buildings sector. We show that with international support such as carbon finance, the BEE improvement will facilitate city's transition to low-carbon supply in the longer term. More importantly, it is argued that demand-side energy performance improvement in buildings should be considered a prerequisite to shifting low-carbon energy supply technologies such as fuel-switching, renewable power generation and Carbon Capture and Storage to address climate mitigation in light of cost-effectiveness and environmental integrity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]