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A reduction in the CO2 emission intensity (ton per gross domestic product) from a base year to a target year with different rates of reduction in each individual year can yield different cumulative CO2 emissions over time, which could have different effects on the climate. In this paper, an indicator is proposed to measure the extent to which the cumulative CO2 emissions are generated by a specific reduction trajectory of CO2 emission intensity, especially for emerging economies with a relatively higher economic growth rate. The proposed indicator is important for less-developed countries and regions in which economic growth is heavily reliant on energy and in which significant potential exists for improvement of energy efficiency. The indicator is applied to evaluate the CO2 emission reduction performance in China's 12th Five-Year Plan period, and the result is not encouraging, especially when the likely gap between the energy conservation goals and temperature goals is further examined. Mitigation goals should be set by considering not only the performance in the final year, but also the reduction in cumulative emissions over the evaluation period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has established the computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to analyze the effect of carbon tax policy on energy consumption and CO2emission in China. The analysis shows that with the increase of CO2mitigation, the level of carbon tax will gradually increase; meanwhile the ad valorem tax rates of coal, petroleum, and natural gas go up as well, and the coal tax rate is the highest among them. In addition, with the increase of CO2emission reductions, the demand for coal, petroleum, natural gas, and thermal power will totally decrease. The demand for coal will drop significantly. The main factor responsible for China’s CO2mitigation is coal. Moreover, the sectors of coal, heavy industries, thermal power, light industries, natural gas, and transportation contribute more to CO2emission reductions, while the other sectors contribute less. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]