The economic and environment impacts of energy intensity target constraint: Evidence from low carbon pilot cities in China

Xiongfeng Pan, Haitao Xu and Shenghan Feng

Energy, 2022, vol. 261, issue PA

Abstract: China has taken substantial policy and set some energy intensity (EI) targets to control CO2 emissions. But how the EI target will affect economy and environment is still unknown. The aim of this paper is to simulate the effect of different EI target constraints on regional economy and energy environment. The study is conducted in 13 Chinese low-carbon pilot cities by a multi-regional environmental dynamic computable general equilibrium model. The results show that: (1) The EI target has a small impact on developed cities, but a greater impact on developing cities, especially in the areas whose economy output is dominated by the secondary industry. (2) The EI target will change the emission path and advance the peak time of emissions. The stronger the EI target constraint is, the earlier the regional carbon emissions reach the peak. (3) The excessive implementation of EI target policy will have negative effect on regional economy. After introducing EI target constraint, the per capita GDP, total labor supply and per capita income will reduce. The finding confirmed the effectiveness of China's EI target policy in addressing climate change and provide guidance for local governments on setting appropriate energy intensity policies to further reduce CO2 emissions.

Keywords: Energy intensity target constraint; Computable general equilibrium model; Low-carbon cities; CO2 emissions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:261:y:2022:i:pa:s0360544222021363

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2022.125250

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