Towards carbon neutrality by implementing carbon emissions trading scheme: Policy evaluation in China

The Carbon Emission Trading Scheme is generally considered an important market-oriented environmental policy tool aiming at carbon abatement. Therefore, the government and policymakers should focus on the positive role it plays. In September 2020, China proposed to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060....

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Energy policy Vol. 157; p. 112510
Main Authors: Chen, Xing, Lin, Boqiang
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 01.10.2021
Elsevier Science Ltd
Subjects:
Carbon
Carbon emissions trading scheme
Carbon neutrality
Carbon offsets
China
Control methods
Emission analysis
Emissions
Emissions control
Emissions trading
energy
Energy conservation
Energy consumption
Energy policy
Energy utilization
Environmental policy
Indexes
Natural experiment
Neutrality
Occupational roles
Performance indices
Placebo effect
Placebos
Policy analysis
Policy making
Synthetic control method
China
Carbon neutrality
Synthetic control method
Carbon emissions trading scheme
China
Natural experiment
ISSN:0301-4215, 1873-6777
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The Carbon Emission Trading Scheme is generally considered an important market-oriented environmental policy tool aiming at carbon abatement. Therefore, the government and policymakers should focus on the positive role it plays. In September 2020, China proposed to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. Based on the background of carbon neutrality, this paper, therefore, examines the policy effectiveness of carbon trading in two stages by taking the natural experiment of China's pilot as a case. The first stage constructs two indicators to represent the performance of energy utilization and carbon emissions by employing the global DEA, namely the total-factor carbon performance index and the energy-carbon performance index. The second stage discusses the policy effect of carbon trading by using the synthetic control method to construct unobservable counterfactual paths. The paper found that carbon trading can significantly improve carbon/energy-carbon performance. This empirical work identifies the role of the carbon trading scheme in promoting energy conservation and emission reduction, which is regarded as an effective policy tool to promote carbon neutrality. The placebo test also confirmed that the results are robust and significant. Finally, some policy suggestions are provided for achieving carbon neutrality worldwide based on these findings. •DEA model and synthetic control method are employed in this paper.•This paper takes the natural experiment of China's pilot CETS as a case study.•Whether CETS is an effective policy tool to promote carbon neutrality is verified.•CETS can improve carbon/energy-carbon performance to reduce emissions.•Suggestions on carbon neutrality and national CETS construction are put forward.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 14
content type line 23
ISSN:0301-4215
1873-6777
DOI:10.1016/j.enpol.2021.112510