Revisiting the myth of energy efficiency in China

Ruohan Zhong and Chu Wei

Chapter 15 in Handbook on Climate Change and Environmental Governance in China, 2024, pp 258-276 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Energy efficiency is considered the “first fuel” in clean energy transitions that plays an important role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating climate change. The myth of energy efficiency in China has attracted considerable attention in recent years, and the analysis of energy efficiency measurements, driving factors, and effects has become increasingly complex. This chapter’s cross-country comparison of the facts at the micro and macro levels indicates that although some Chinese enterprises are at the international frontier in terms of micro-level energy efficiency, their overall energy efficiency levels at the industrial and national levels are seriously lagging. Accordingly, in terms of energy efficiency, China is characterized as a “local leader” at the micro level and an “overall laggard” at the macro level. This chapter then systematically analyzes the channels affecting energy efficiency in China based on the market segmentation framework. The results reveal that technical, scale, and allocation inefficiencies are three important transmission mechanisms through which market segmentation inhibits energy efficiency. This chapter provides a special perspective on the barriers and opportunities for improving energy efficiency in China, which in turn informs the sustainable development in various counties.

Keywords: Asian Studies; Environment; Politics and Public Policy Sustainable Development Goals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781035316359.00024 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:22529_15

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Darrel McCalla ().