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The low-carbon transformation is the key to China's high-quality economic development. This paper uses the panel data of 278 Chinese cities to measure low-carbon total factor productivity (LCTFP) and examines the impact of environmental protection tax (EPT) reform on LCTFP. EPT significantly promotes LCTFP. The promotion effect is more significant in the lower administrative level and resource-based cities in central and western regions. EPT promotes LCTFP through three channels including green technology innovation (GTI) effect, industrial structure upgrading effect and forcing effect. EPT has a negative spatial spillover effect on LCTFP in neighboring areas. This paper provides important empirical evidence for further advancing the EPT in China. • EPT significantly promotes LCTFP. • The promotion effect is more significant in low administrative level and resource-based cities in central-western region. • EPT promotes LCTFP through green technology innovation, industrial structure upgrading and forcing effect. • EPT has a negative spatial spillover effect on LCTFP in neighboring areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In spite of its rapid economic development, China is faced with serious issues of resource shortage and environmental pollution. This paper is aimed at exploring the issues of resource shortage and environmental pollution in Chinese cities by means of efficiency evaluation. Through the Super-efficiency general directional distance function (GDDF) model, this paper calculates the urban efficiencies of resource-saving (UERS) of 197 Chinese cities from 2011 to 2015. Furthermore, considering the environmental problems, it applies the Super-efficiency GDDF model with undesirable outputs, and accesses the urban efficiencies containing environmental factors (UEEF). The empirical results are listed as follows. (1) Most of the Chinese cities exhibited comparatively low UERS and UEEF, indicating great potential for the reduction of resource consumption and environmental pollution; (2) Those groups with higher levels of resource-saving efficiency tend to have poorer environmental efficiency. This means that many cities achieve good economic performance at the expense of the environment; (3) In order to realize the sustainable economic and social development, we should not only save resources, but also reduce the emission of pollutants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Household rooftop photovoltaic technology not only alleviate the reliance on fossil fuels of electric power industries that benefits to environmental protection, but also to enhance rural households' income and relieve poverty. This paper explores the influence of uncertainty and time preference on rural households' adoption of rooftop photovoltaic technology using field experiment in Shandong, China. The results show that most rural households are inclined to risk aversion and ambiguity aversion, half of those are present-biased households. Risk preference, ambiguity preference and time preference obviously and positively impact the possibility of the adoption of rooftop photovoltaic technology, and time preference plays an essential positive moderating role in the impact of uncertainty preference on technology adoption. This research provides a micro view and policy recommendations for household rooftop photovoltaic technology promotion in rural China and sheds light upon how the government can formulate relevant policies to promote the technology. • Measure the households' uncertainty preference using field experiment. • Uncertainty and time preference impact rural rooftop photovoltaic technology adoption. • Time preference plays an important positive moderating role. • Household income and government subsidies affect household technological adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper adopts the contingent valuation method to study people's willingness to pay for the adoption of new energy buses in the four most developed cities of China: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. An interval regression model is employed to analyze the influencing factors of people's willingness to pay and estimate the exact amount of extra money people would pay per fare. The results show that approximately eighty percent of the respondents in the four cities would like to pay extra fare to support the adoption of new energy buses and the specific amount is 0.653 RMB/fare among all the respondents. Those with higher household income, who are younger, who think the adoption can significantly improve air quality and who deem that they live in a place with good air quality are willing to pay higher. But public concern about energy security issue in China does not have significant impact on the willingness to pay. It is therefore recommended that setting a higher price for new energy bus fare is reasonable and more knowledge of new energy buses should be conveyed to the public, especially its purpose of improving air quality and alleviating the high pressure of energy security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Establishing an equal and effective emissions trading system is a long-term strategy to promote sustainable environmental protection and stronger economic growth. Due to regional divergences in economic development, resource endowment and geographical CO 2 emissions space, this paper focuses on a comprehensive emissions reduction allocation solution based on the Shapley value method and estimating economic welfare effects through interregional emissions trading in China. Our empirical results verify that the Shapley value-based allocation criterion is an equal and effective emissions reduction target allocation. The Eastern and Southern coast, and the Northeastern and Middle Yellow River regions are the main emissions permit buyers, and they incur windfall economic losses because of greater marginal abatement cost, while the Southwest, Northwest, Northern coast and Middle Yangtze River regions are the main emissions permit sellers, and they earn windfall economic benefits because of the emissions reduction potential of energy-intensive industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increasing power consumption in China and the urgent demand for environmental protection, promoting the development of clean energy power generation industry is the only way to optimize the energy power generation structure. It is very important to effectively predict the development trend of China's clean energy power generation system with complex, changeable and limited data. To address this issue, this paper defines a novel fractional self-adaptive reverse accumulation sequence, and combines discrete modeling techniques and time power terms to propose a novel fractional self-adaptive reverse accumulation with time power terms. The parameter estimation and time response formula of the new model are derived. The matrix perturbation theory is used to prove that the new model satisfies the new information priority principle. The Grey Wolf Optimizer is used to optimize the self-adaptive parameter r and non-negative constant α. Finally, the prediction model is constructed for the power generation capacity of five representative types of clean energy in China: biomass, wind, nuclear, natural gas and hydro power, the prediction result shows that the new model has higher prediction accuracy and data applicability than the other five grey models. According to these prediction results, relevant suggestions on the development of China's clean energy are provided to decision makers. • A novel fractional order self-adaptive reverse accumulation sequence is proposed. • A novel fractional order self-adaptive discrete grey model is developed. • The case experimental results show that the new model is much better. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the feasibility of constructing multi-energy complementary systems in rural areas of China is examined. First, the rural energy structure and energy utilization in the eastern, central, and western regions of China are analyzed, and the development and utilization modes of multi-energy complementary systems in different regions are evaluated based on the differences in the resource endowment in different regions. Second, the input-output status of the multi-energy complementary mode in different regions is analyzed. Then, based on the assumption of technical feasibility, the feasibility of the multi-energy complementary system is analyzed in terms of various dimensions, such as economic, energy conservation, environmental protection, and social benefit. Finally, an empirical study is conducted by comparing the proposed multi-energy complementary system with traditional energy supply system. The results show that the development of a multi-energy complementary system in each region is feasible from the perspective of multiple dimensions to reduce environmental pollution, create employment opportunities, and improve the economy. Moreover, the system can significantly reduce the peak-valley difference and improve energy efficiency. • This paper analyzes the differences in energy structure in the different regions of China. • Construct a multi-energy complementary system in each region. • Demonstrate the feasibility of constructing a multi-energy complementary system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: China''s carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion had increased with an annual growth rate of 4.36% since 1980, hitting 1GtC in 2003. The global climate change issue is becoming more and more important and hence to be the fourth challenge for China''s future energy development, following energy supply shortages, energy security, and local environmental protection. This paper used three MARKAL (MARKet ALlocation) family models, that is, MARKAL, MARKAL-ED (MARKAL with elastic demand), and MARKAL-MACRO, to study China energy system''s carbon mitigation strategies and corresponding impacts on the economy. The models’ structures and the economic feedback formulations used in MARKAL-MACRO and MARKAL-ED are briefly described. The endogenous demands in MARKAL-MACRO and MARKAL-ED enable them to partly satisfy carbon abatement constraints via energy service demand reductions, and the reduction levels for the 30 demand sectors from these two kinds of models for given carbon emission constraints are presented and compared. The impact of carbon mitigation on social welfare from MARKAL and MARKAL-ED, and on GDP, investment and consumption from MARKAL-MACRO are evaluated. The changes in both final and primary energy mix, changes in technology development, as well as marginal abatement costs for given carbon constraints from the three models, are analyzed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]