Research on the initial allocation of carbon emission quotas: evidence from China

Yu-Jie Hu, Rong Han and Bao-Jun Tang
Additional contact information
Yu-Jie Hu: Beijing Institute of Technology
Rong Han: Beijing Institute of Technology

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, 2017, vol. 85, issue 2, No 28, 1189-1208

Abstract: Abstract In November 2015, China government announced that the national carbon emissions trading market is expected to start in 2017. Carbon emission trading system is a raising concern from day to day, in which the allocation of carbon quotas has the closest relationship with trading units directly determining the cost of carbon trading. Initial allowance allocation is fundamental, but it proposes difficulty in terms of the trading mechanism design. This paper is based on the total control principle of national layout, in which the government sets up the cap of emissions in the carbon emissions trading system and focuses on the historical emission allocation concept from the perspective of fairness and history responsibility meaning that the allocation of quota in the future is based on the historical emissions. Firstly, we carry out comparative analysis based on the economy development and the emissions of 31 provinces and cities in China and select the sign-post province, Hebei. Secondly, we take the sign-post province as benchmarking and compare the benchmarking with the other provinces on the economy to set three quota situations of different initial years. Finally, we conduct quota calculation of residual carbon dioxide of various provinces by the end of 2020 and provide the specific quota calculation plans under different situations. The result of quota indicates: Most provinces still have more or less surplus to reallocate by the end of 2020; some provinces and cities have developing economy at expense of large emission and old industrial area with high energy consumption and high coal demand are in the shortage of future emission space; for the developed areas, the earlier emissions accounting is not good for their owning surplus; the earlier the years we select as the starting to account the quota, the greater the reductions space we will have. Meanwhile, we carry out testing of the feasibility of self-providing quota plans. These results may provide corresponding policy advice for China.

Keywords: Carbon emissions trading; Total control; Initial allocation; Long-term fair (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11069-016-2628-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:nathaz:v:85:y:2017:i:2:d:10.1007_s11069-016-2628-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11069

DOI: 10.1007/s11069-016-2628-y

Access Statistics for this article

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards is currently edited by Thomas Glade, Tad S. Murty and Vladimír Schenk

More articles in Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards from Springer, International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().