Does the Carbon Emission Trading Policy Promote Foreign Direct Investment?: A Quasi-Experiment From China

As an important policy to promote global energy transition and carbon emission reduction, does the carbon emission trading policy help promote foreign direct investment inflows, thus alleviating the contradiction between environment and economic development? Based on the “OLI paradigm,” by using the data of China’s 30 provinces from 2007 to 2016 and taking China’s pilot implementation carbon emission transaction policy in 2013 as the natural experiment, so as to construct a differences-in-differences model, this study empirically analyzed the impact of carbon emission transaction policies on foreign direct investment and conducted an in-depth analysis and discussion on related heterogeneity. The empirical results show that 1) there is a positive correlation between the carbon emission trading policy and foreign direct investment; 2) the results of heterogeneity analysis show that the effect of carbon emission trading policy on the increase in FDI is more significant in the areas with a stronger environmental regulation, a higher degree of marketization, and low energy consumption. The conclusions of this study enrich the analysis of the effectiveness of government environmental policies from the perspective of both environment and economic development and provide relevant policy enlightenment for developing countries in environmental regulation and attracting foreign direct investment.Systematic Review Registration: [website], identifier [registration number].

Blending of Hydrothermal Liquefaction Biocrude with Residual Marine Fuel: An Experimental Assessment

As with all transport modes, the maritime sector is undergoing a drastic transition towards net zero, similar to the path in which Aviation is already engaged through global decarbonization programs such as CORSIA for the International Civil Aviation Organization, or the Emission trading Scheme of the European Union). Maritime indeed shares with Aviation a common element: the difficulty of shifting to electric in the short to medium term. Therefore, the use of sustainable fuels represents the main and only relevant option in this timeframe. As sustainable biofuels will be used as blend components in the case of large-scale deployment, it is necessary to investigate the behavior of bio- and fossil-based fuels when mixed in various percentages, in particular for low quality products such as HTL (HydroThermal Liquefaction) and fast pyrolysis oils from lignocellulosic biomass and waste. Biocrude from subcritical hydrothermal liquefaction of undigested sewage sludge, produced at reaction conditions of 350 °C and 200 bar in a continuous HTL pilot scale unit, was manually mixed at 70 °C with residual marine fuel (low-sulphur type F-RMG-380 per ISO 8217) at two different nominal biocrude shares, respectively 10 wt.% and 20 wt.% in the mixture. While the former blend resulted in the technically complete dissolution of biocrude in the fossil component, the latter sample formed biocrude agglomerates and only partial dissolution of the biocrude aliquot in marine fuel could be achieved (calculated between 14–16 wt.%). The blend with 10 wt.% of SS biocrude in the mixture resulted in compliance with limits of total acid number (TAN), inorganics (in particular vanadium, sodium, silicon and aluminum) and sulphur content, while only the ash content was slightly above the limit.

Carbon Emission Trading Scheme, Carbon Emissions Reduction and Spatial Spillover Effects: Quasi-Experimental Evidence From China

The carbon emission trading scheme (ETS) is an essential policy tool for accomplishing Chinese carbon targets. Based on the Chinese provincial panel data from 2003 to 2019, an empirical study is conducted to measure the effects of carbon emission reduction and spatial spillover effect by adopting the difference-in-differences (DID) model and spatial difference-in-differences (SDID) model. The research findings show that: 1) The ETS effectively reduced the total carbon emissions as well as emissions from coal consumption; 2) such effects come mainly from the reduction of coal consumption and the optimization of energy structure, rather than from technological innovation and optimization of industrial structure in the pilot regions; and 3) the ETS pilot regions have a positive spatial spillover effect on non-pilot regions, indicating the acceleration effect for carbon emission reduction. Geographic proximity makes the spillover effect decrease due to carbon leakage.

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.

Study of Chinese carbon emission trading market mechanism based on the game theory

<p>In order to provide corresponding suggestions for the establishment and development of China's carbon trading market mechanism, the three-party game model of the competent government departments, carbon emission enterprises and third-party verification institution in the initial allocation of carbon emission rights and the rotation bargaining game model in the secondary carbon trading market are solved and analyzed in this paper. The results show that the competent government departments should improve the review efficiency effectively to reduce cost by outsourcing the review work to universities, research institutes and other scientific research units and increasing punishment for the collusion behavior between the carbon emission enterprises and third-party verification institution. At the same time, the competent government departments should adopt the regular regulatory policies to deal with collusion behavior and reduce the sampling proportion to cut cost of government review. The trading center should directly determine transaction price in combination with the forces of buyers and sellers, and make matchmaking trading directly by selecting the qualified buyers and sellers at the secondary carbon trading market in process of bilateral open bidding.</p>

The effectiveness of China’s regional carbon market pilots in reducing firm emissions

China has implemented an emission trading system (ETS) to reduce its ever-increasing greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining rapid economic growth. With low carbon prices and infrequent allowance trading, whether China’s ETS is an effective approach for climate mitigation has entered the center of the policy and research debate. Utilizing China’s regional ETS pilots as a quasi-natural experiment, we provide a comprehensive assessment of the effects of ETS on firm carbon emissions and economic outcomes by means of a matched difference-in-differences (DID) approach. The empirical analysis is based on a unique panel dataset of firm tax records in the manufacturing and public utility sectors during 2009 to 2015. We show unambiguous evidence that the regional ETS pilots are effective in reducing firm emissions, leading to a 16.7% reduction in total emissions and a 9.7% reduction in emission intensity. Regulated firms achieve emission abatement through conserving energy consumption and switching to low-carbon fuels. The economic consequences of the ETS are mixed. On one hand, the ETS has a negative impact on employment and capital input; on the other hand, the ETS incentivizes regulated firms to improve productivity. In the aggregate, the ETS does not exhibit statistically significant effects on output and export. We also find that the ETS displays notable heterogeneity across pilots. Mass-based allowance allocation rules, higher carbon prices, and active allowance trading contribute to more pronounced effects in emission abatement.