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China has become the world's largest carbon emitter since 2007; thus, reducing future emission has become an arduous task. Calculating energy efficiency fairly is paramount for formulating energy policies, given the different development levels of provinces. This study employed a three-stage data envelopment analysis model that considered environmental constraints to evaluate the energy efficiency of China's 30 provinces in 2015 and redefined traditional energy efficiency as energy environment efficiency which calculated under environmental constraints. Different factors, such as urban development level and industrial structure in relation to energy environment efficiency, were analyzed. Three main results were obtained. First, the average energy environment efficiency in 2015 was only 0.73, which showed that China has roughly 30% capacity for improvement in the future. Second, stochastic frontier analysis demonstrated that the industrial structure, energy consumption structure, and central heating systems exerted negative impacts, and the level of city design and the degree of openness exerted positive effects on energy environment efficiency. Third, capital, manpower, and the extent of industrial concentration in central and western regions should be increased to improve China's energy environment efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In November 2015, China government announced that the national carbon emissions trading market is expected to start in 2017. Carbon emission trading system is a raising concern from day to day, in which the allocation of carbon quotas has the closest relationship with trading units directly determining the cost of carbon trading. Initial allowance allocation is fundamental, but it proposes difficulty in terms of the trading mechanism design. This paper is based on the total control principle of national layout, in which the government sets up the cap of emissions in the carbon emissions trading system and focuses on the historical emission allocation concept from the perspective of fairness and history responsibility meaning that the allocation of quota in the future is based on the historical emissions. Firstly, we carry out comparative analysis based on the economy development and the emissions of 31 provinces and cities in China and select the sign-post province, Hebei. Secondly, we take the sign-post province as benchmarking and compare the benchmarking with the other provinces on the economy to set three quota situations of different initial years. Finally, we conduct quota calculation of residual carbon dioxide of various provinces by the end of 2020 and provide the specific quota calculation plans under different situations. The result of quota indicates: Most provinces still have more or less surplus to reallocate by the end of 2020; some provinces and cities have developing economy at expense of large emission and old industrial area with high energy consumption and high coal demand are in the shortage of future emission space; for the developed areas, the earlier emissions accounting is not good for their owning surplus; the earlier the years we select as the starting to account the quota, the greater the reductions space we will have. Meanwhile, we carry out testing of the feasibility of self-providing quota plans. These results may provide corresponding policy advice for China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper calculated the embodied carbon in China export and its distribution in each industrial sector. The calculation results showed the total carbon emission of export experienced an increase before 2007 and then a decrease till 2010. The ratio of export embodied carbon accounting for the total carbon emission in China also increased from 31 % in 2002 to 52 % in 2007 and then declined to 40 % in 2010. As for distribution, the export embodied carbon emission of the following industries such as machinery and equipment manufacturing, metal products manufacturing industry, chemical industry, textile, clothing and leather products manufacturing industry ranked the highest. According to the calculation and analysis of the main driving factors of embodied carbon growth, we analyzed the structure effect, scale effect and technological effect's influence on embodied carbon growth, respectively. We also calculated the trade competitiveness index of 17 export industries. Through research, we found that the products with strong international competitiveness belong to high-carbon-emission categories, which was the main reason of high carbon emission in China export. Finally, we proposed related policy suggestions to promote China's export trade structural readjustment and optimization and China's low carbon development in export. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has a large number of rural-urban migrant workers in the 'semi-urban' states, and their consumption pattern differs from that of rural residents and urban residents. To ensure that society develops sustainably and stably, it is necessary to be concerned about the issues of migrant workers. Based on the data gathered and processed, this paper focuses on the impacts of the consumption of China's migrant workers on energy use and CO emissions using the input-output method. The results show that: the living conditions, health care and allocation of educational resources have not been effectively ensured for migrant workers. The total CO emission per capita of migrant workers is relatively low, at two-thirds of the national average and less than one-third that of urban residents. Marginal energy consumption and marginal carbon emission coefficients of migrant workers are slightly lower than the national average level, at 4.9 tce (tonne of standard coal equivalent) per million yuan and 11.6 t CO per million yuan lower than those of urban residents. The sectors of food manufacture, and production and distribution of electricity make the greatest contributions to the total carbon emissions of migrant workers, at up to 36.3 %. The citizenization of migrant workers will lead to an increase of 272 million tons of CO emissions of primary energy, and the top ten sectors, led by the sectors of electricity production and distribution, and health, will produce more than 60 % of the total increase in carbon emissions. With the acceleration of urbanization and citizenization, the total carbon emissions embodied in the consumption of migrant workers are likely to rise. Further efforts are required to control and reduce the indirect carbon emission, such as by improving energy price mechanism and optimization of the power structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is predicted to have higher drought risk with global warming, and for better preparedness and mitigation, it is necessary to find out the risky areas and reveal the essential causes. This paper develops an integrated index of drought risk following the pressure-state-impact process in which drought hazard and vulnerability are reflected by two stages of pressure-state and state-impact, respectively. Accordingly, the network structure data envelopment analysis model is employed to calculate the degree of drought risk, hazard and vulnerability. Then, this study evaluates 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions of China, and the tempospatial patterns of regional drought hazard, vulnerability and risk during 2006-2011 are presented. Moreover, the determinants of risk in different parts of China are also investigated. The results suggest that the northeast and southwest of China are more potential to be affected by drought due to the high degree of hazard and vulnerability. The dominant factor affecting drought risk in the northwest is vulnerability, because the hazard in this part is comparatively low. However, although the drought situation is severe in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the southeastern coastal areas, the strong resilience to drought makes the risk remain low. It is concluded that the effective way to decrease drought risk is to promote the level of water efficiency and agricultural irrigation, so that low sensitivity and high adaptive capacity would contribute to vulnerability reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper uses a capital asset pricing model to analyze the market risk in the European Union Emission Trading System (EU ETS) and clean development mechanisms (CDM) and Zipf analysis technology to analyze the carbon price volatility in different expectations of returns in the two markets. The results show that the systematic risk of the EU ETS market is around 0.07 %, but the CDM market is clearly divided into two stages; the systematic risk of the futures contracts in the first stage (DEC09-DEC12) is less than the EU ETS market, but the systematic risk of the futures contracts that enter the market is greater than the EU ETS market and has a higher market sensitivity, although on the unsystematic risk. The CDM market is always greater than the EU ETS market. Abnormal returns in the two carbon markets are both lower than 0.02 %, but CDM is higher. The probability of price down is greater than that of price up. The carbon price is affected by market mechanisms and external factors (economic crisis and environmental policies) in the low expectations of returns. However, in the high expectations of returns, compared with the CDM market, the carbon price change in the EU ETS market is less stable and has higher risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study the quantitative effects of climatic factors (cold and hot events represented by cooling and heating degree days, wind speed, precipitation and sunshine duration) on electricity consumptions in the four sectors of China and draw the curves of temperature sensitivity of each sector. The results of impacts of climatic factors demonstrate that the household sector and the tertiary industry are more sensitive to the hot and cold events than the primary and the secondary industry; the stimulation of the cold pressure on the electricity use of the household sector, the secondary and the tertiary industry is approximately 1/2 of that of the same degree of the hot event; under the condition of temperatures rise, the saved amount of electricity is not sufficient to offset the incremental electricity consumption for each sector; the impact on the secondary industrial relative amount is minimum but absolute amount is highest while that of primary industry is opposite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we report eight sets of multivariate regression equations, introducing the socioeconomic factors for the estimation models of monthly electricity consumption in the primary, secondary, tertiary industry, and the household sectors, to study the quantitative effects of socioeconomic factors (electricity real price, activity level, income, holiday, etc.). The results demonstrate that the price elasticity of electricity demand in the household and the secondary industry sectors is significant. When the electricity price increases by 1 %, the demand in the household and secondary industry sectors reduces by 0.4-0.5 % with a time lag for the latter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]