Provincial Carbon Emissions Reduction Allocation Plan in China Based on Consumption Perspective

Xuecheng Wang, Xu Tang, Baosheng Zhang, Benjamin C. McLellan and Yang Lv
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Xuecheng Wang: School of Business Administration, China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China
Xu Tang: School of Business Administration, China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China
Baosheng Zhang: School of Business Administration, China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China
Benjamin C. McLellan: Graduate School of Energy Science, Kyoto University, Yoshida-honmachi, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan
Yang Lv: PetroChina Planning &Engineering institute, 9 Dongzhimen North Street, Dongcheng District, Beijing 100007, China

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 5, 1-23

Abstract: China is a country with substantial differences in economic development, energy consumption mix, resources, and technologies, as well as the development path at the provincial level. Therefore, China’s provinces have different potential and degrees of difficulty to carry out carbon emission reduction (CER) requirements. In addition, interprovincial trade, with a large amount of embodied carbon emissions, has become the fastest growing driver of China’s total carbon emissions. A reasonable CER allocation plan is, therefore, crucial for realizing the commitment that China announced in the Paris Agreement. How to determine a fair way to allocate provincial CER duties has become a significant challenge for both policy-makers and researchers. In this paper, ecological network analysis (ENA), combined with a multi-regional input-output model (MRIO), is adopted to build an ecological network of embodied emissions across 30 provinces. Then, by using flow analysis and utility analysis based on the ENA model, the specific relationships among different provinces were determined, and the amount of responsibility that a certain province should take quantified, with respect to the embodied carbon emission (ECE) flows from interprovincial trade. As a result, we suggest a new CER allocation plan, based on the detailed data of interprovincial relationships and ECE flows.

Keywords: carbon emission reduction allocation; embodied carbon emission flow; input-output analysis; ecological network analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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