›› 2018, Vol. 30 ›› Issue (5): 137-147.

Previous Articles     Next Articles

Provincial Carbon Productivity Target Allocation Plan in China:Producer and Consumer Responsibility

Xia Yan1,3, Wu Jie2   

  1. 1. Institutes of Science and Development, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190;
    2. School of Statistics and Management, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Shanghai 200433;
    3. School of Public Policy and Management, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049
  • Received:2016-04-29 Online:2018-05-28 Published:2018-05-29

Abstract:

Globalization and regional economic integration has caused the expansion of depth and breadth in industrial division. Due to the rapid development of interregional intermediate products trade and the geographical separation of production and consumption, the production and consumption-related emissions can be transferred with products trade, which means that the accounting of carbon emis-sions under different responsibilities, as well as the provincial emission reduction targets based on it (such as targets of carbon intensity and carbon productivity) will have different impact of cost-effectiveness and environmental responsibility on provinces. Based on the in-put-output method, this paper develops a multi-regional input-output model to analyze the embodied carbon in domestic and international trade in China. Furthermore, combined with the objective optimization method, this paper estimates the provincial abatement costs and adjustment of provincial emission reduction targets under different environmental responsibilities. The results indicate that the accounting under consumer responsibility can reconcile efficiency and equity, and appropriately transfer the responsibility for production emissions in less developed regions to developed regions, thus reducing the interregional carbon leakage and improving the economic competitiveness in less developed regions. In addition, the carbon productivity target emphasizes the re-planning of emission reduction target according to energy efficiency, and to further improve the energy efficiency in less developed regions. Policy makers can allocate and increase invest-ment according to energy efficiency and unit abatement cost, improving the efficiency of emissions reduction. Finally, policy recommen-dations are proposed based on our conclusions.

Key words: carbon productivity, environmental responsibility, embodied carbon emissions, input output analysis