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To achieve nationally determined contribution (NDC) targets, China has developed a series of low carbon development plans. Among them, the clean energy transformation is very crucial. This study evaluates the impact of a set of policies including the development of renewable energy, upgrading heavy industry, and energy efficiency improvement on China's income gap between 2012 and 2050. A dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model with detailed representations of economic activity, an upgraded labor market and disaggregated labor types based on statistical and survey data is used. Our research provides support for the necessity of low-carbon policies to achieve NDC targets. Results show some key findings. First, low-carbon policies have the greatest impact on employment across all energy industries, with negative impacts in most traditional energy sectors and positive impacts in most renewable power sectors. Second, labor will continue to migrate from rural to urban areas with the transformation of the economic structure and the urbanization rate will further increase, reaching a maximum of around 70%. The reduction of the rural population will bring new opportunities for the modernization of agriculture, increasing the income of rural residents and realizing the equitable development between urban and rural areas. Third, the income gap among urban residents will widen due to the different level of labor demand for employees with different education levels. • The impact of low carbon policies on employment and income is assessed. • A dynamic CGE model with disaggregated labor types is developed. • Policies have the positive employment impact in the renewable energy industries. • The income gap will decline between urban and rural residents. • The income gap will widen among urban residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employment impacts are one of the most important social impacts associated with the development of renewable energy, and are also one of the key concerns for policy makers designing renewable energy policies. Current studies tend to focus on the direct job changes in renewable sectors per se and on the indirect job changes along value chains of renewable energy, therefore depicting a picture of prosperity with large amounts of “green jobs”. However, the induced job changes in other sectors that are not directly in the value chains but are still influenced by electricity price changes and related financial resource transfers have usually been neglected, resulting in an incomplete and potentially biased understanding of this specific category of social impact. By using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model of China that incorporates detailed renewable power generation technologies and considers labor market imperfections, our study tries to fill this gap and quantifies the full scope of job changes (direct, indirect and induced) brought by renewable energy development in China. Results show that per 1 TW h expansion of solar PV and wind power would create up to 45.1 thousand and 15.8 thousand, respectively, direct and indirect jobs in China. However, the scale of induced job changes is quite significant and may even lead to net job losses in the whole economy in some cases. We have further revealed the sectoral contributors to total job changes. In all, there are no assured conclusions on the occurrence of green jobs when developing renewable energy. The impacts are highly dependent on the species of renewable energy, the financing mechanisms for renewable subsidies, and the scopes of employment impacts. We suggest that full-scope employment impacts should be carefully considered and the detailed supporting policies should be carefully designed by decision makers when promoting renewable energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]