The Impact of China Carbon Emission Trading System on Land Use Transition: A Macroscopic Economic Perspective

The carbon emission trading system (CETS) is a milestone policy in the history of China’s emission trading system, which is of great significance to China’s realization of “carbon peak and carbon neutralization”. As an important component of sustainable development, LUT should be related to the CETS. However, in the literature on the CETS, little material deals with its impact on land use transition (LUT). This paper will enrich this literature. Based on 30 provincial regions in China from 2011 to 2017, using the DID and entropy methods, this study investigated the impact of CETS on the trend of LUT from three perspectives: economic effects, environmental effects and Porter effects. The conclusions are that (1) the implementation of the CETS hindered economic development, but optimized energy-use efficiency; (2) the implementation of the CETS reduced the emissions of CO2 and SO2; (3) the implementation of the CETS did not produce a Porter effect; and (4) the influence of the CETS had the characteristics of a spatial cluster. These findings offer some guidance for improving CETS policies and formulating similar environmental regulation policies.

The Political Economy of Regulation: An Analysis of the Mexican Emission Trading System

The chapter argues that the design of carbon pricing policies takes place as a sequential, negotiated process whereby specific constituencies have privileged access to shape policy design because they have high stakes in regulations. These groups, identified ex ante based on the political economy of regulation and a stakeholder approach, exhibit two characteristics: first, they are high-interest actors, as a change in the status quo would impose concentrated costs on them; second, they are high-power actors, since their resources and participation in the national economy make them a critical sector. Using theory-guided process tracing and the policy stages heuristics framework, the empirical analysis explores the policymaking process of the Mexican pilot emission trading system and discusses key features of its design.

Market-based Environmental Regulation, Green Technology Innovation and Green Total Factor Energy Efficiency: A PSM-DID test based on an emissions trading system

Based on the panel data of 30 provinces in China and the SBM-Malmquist-Luenberger model, a comprehensive evaluation of all-factor green energy efficiency in each province is conducted. It is found that the energy structure and all-factor green energy efficiency in southeast China are significantly higher than those in central and western China. On this basis, this paper empirically tests the impact of the pilot policy of emission trading on total factor green energy efficiency in 2008 by using the double difference method. The research shows that the emission trading system can significantly improve the regional total factor green energy efficiency; further research finds that green technological innovation is the main path for the policy to promote green total factor energy efficiency; heterogeneity analysis shows that in the high pollution pilot areas, the emission trading system plays a more significant role in promoting all-factor green energy efficiency and green technology innovation.

Environmental Assessment and Regulatory Aspects of Cold Ironing Planning for a Maritime Route in the Adriatic Sea

The technology of cold ironing (or shore-to-ship power) can meaningfully reduce greenhouse gases and air pollutant emissions from ships at the berth by powering the vessels from the electrical shore grid. While cold ironing constitutes an effective and affordable solution in northern Europe and America, economic, legal, and environmental factors still render this technology less attractive in southern Europe. This paper aims to unpack and analyze the economic, regulatory, and environmental factors that can foster cold ironing as a standard installation in the Mediterranean Sea. Based on a model design for the port of Trieste (Italy) as applied to a cluster of target ports in the Adriatic Sea (in Italy, Croatia, and Greece), this article evaluates the cold ironing payback period by comparing costs of shore side-plants with environmental externalities and O&M costs. Moreover, the paper addresses key regulatory bottlenecks arising in different European jurisdictions with regard to the setting-up and development of cold ironing, while appraising the legal and economic consequences of deploying cold ironing in light of the future inclusion of the maritime sector in the EU Emission Trading System.