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This paper analyses the impact of postponing global mitigation action on abatement costs and energy systems changes in China and India. It compares energy-system changes and mitigation costs from a global and two national energy-system models under two global emission pathways with medium likelihood of meeting the 2 °C target: a least-cost pathway and a pathway that postpones ambitious mitigation action, starting from the Copenhagen Accord pledges. Both pathways have similar 2010–2050 cumulative greenhouse gas emissions. The analysis shows that postponing mitigation action increases the lock-in in less energy efficient technologies and results in much higher cumulative mitigation costs. The models agree that carbon capture and storage (CCS) and nuclear energy are important mitigation technologies, while the shares of biofuels and other renewables vary largely over the models. Differences between India and China with respect to the timing of emission reductions and the choice of mitigation measures relate to differences in projections of rapid economic change, capital stock turnover and technological development. Furthermore, depending on the way it is implemented, climate policy could increase indoor air pollution, but it is likely to provide synergies for energy security. These relations should be taken into account when designing national climate policies.

Resilience is receiving increasing scientific attention, albeit its notion is still in progress and not univocal, especially when it comes to specific sectors such as energy. Energy and resilience policy is detected as a dominant strategy to achieve international development objectives throughout long-term sustainability and wellbeing goals. Energy resilience also crosses major energy policy issues – namely energy vulnerability, security, poverty, and justice. Making use of the Web Of Science 2018 release, this work aims at contributing to a clarification of the concept of energy resilience, proposing a taxonomy. The bibliometric outputs show a sharp increase in scientific publications on the issue. The bibliometric analysis suggests a taxonomy of energy resilience based on 7 approaches or strategies. The results suggest an evolution of the conceptual contributions, that enlarge resilience early use, merely applied to technical and hard sciences. Resilience is today used in different disciplines, including social sciences and sustainability studies, as part of a holistic approach centered on sustainable development.

Abstract In modern developed economies, one of the primary objectives is to manage the transition from polluting to cleaner technologies as efficiently as possible. By now, in the current empirical literature, one can identify technological spillovers from environmental innovations as a major driver of this process. Specific energy policy aspects connected with industry behaviour have yet to be explored. The aim of this paper is to investigate energy efficiency via environmental innovation and the resulting degree of resilience and adaptation of both developed and developing countries. The work applies the non-parametric DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) framework and Tobit analysis. For this scope, it is built a panel dataset made of some 5000 observations based on energy policy and sustainable development variables for 136 OECD and non-OECD countries. The results show that knowledge spillovers from environmental innovations reduce inefficiency and therefore strengthen the resilience of economies that decide and manage to invest adequately in the transition to more sustainable technologies. Besides, OECD countries improve their energy efficiency scores over time, whilst non-OECD countries do not. This implies that sustainable technologies transition is made more efficient by environmental innovation but the process is fostered by disposing of a resilient economic system – hence, vulnerability can affect the transition. These hypotheses lead to important economic, social and environmental implications for energy policy modelling.

This paper applies a panel of 28 provinces of China from 1996 to 2012 to study the impacts of economic development, energy consumption, trade openness, and urbanization on the carbon dioxide, waste water, and waste solid emissions. By estimating a dynamic panel model with the system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimator and an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model with alternative panel estimators, respectively, we find that the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis is well supported for all three major pollutant emissions in China across different models and estimation methods. Our study also confirms positive effects of energy consumption on various pollutant emissions. In addition, we find some evidence that trade and urbanization may deteriorate environmental quality in the long run, albeit not in the short run. From policy perspective, our estimation results bode well for Chinese government's goal of capping greenhouse emissions by 2030 as outlined in the recent China-US climate accord, while containing energy consumption and harm effects from expanding trade and urbanization remains some environmental challenges that China faces.

Abstract The development of the regional economy in China is unbalanced. Interregional "carbon leakage" and "carbon transfer" have a significant impact on the realization of carbon emission mitigation targets and the allocation of responsibility. Using China's interregional input-output tables and the corresponding carbon emission data for 2007 and 2010, this paper proposes an interregional Ghosh input-output model and estimates the amount of interprovincial carbon emission transfer from the supply-side perspective. We find that the main direction of supply-side carbon emission transfer is from resource-intensive provinces in the central and western regions to developed provinces in the eastern coastal regions. Further analysis shows that the transfer is mainly concentrated in the production and distribution of electricity and heat, nonmetallic mineral products, and basic metals, whose carbon emissions account for approximately 70% of all sectors’ carbon emissions. The differences between the supply side and the demand side of China's provinces are mainly reflected in the transfer out of carbon emissions.

Abstract Many countries are concerned with the waste-to-energy for economic development and societal welfare. This paper constructs a dynamic game model that, for the first time compares the incentive effects of four common subsidy modes on waste cooking oil supply for biofuel refining and sales of waste cooking oil refined products. The model considers the impact of preferential tax treatment, a raw material subsidy, a sales subsidy and an investment subsidy on the profits of biofuel enterprises and waste cooking oil recyclers. Results indicate that common approaches adopted in developed economies such as raw material price subsidies and finished products sales subsidies increase the profits of both biofuel enterprises and recyclers. On the contrary, investment subsidies, which are relatively common in some regions of China, increase the profits of recyclers, while reducing revenues achieved by biofuel enterprises. To promote the supply chain, policy should give priority to raw material price subsidies and finished products sales subsidies, and for investment subsidies, however, the government should be cautious.

Abstract Effective low carbon transport policy-making needs to first understand what are the factors influencing residents’ modal choice and how it can be intervened. This study uses a discrete choice model to analyse the factors influencing residents’ mode choice in Beijing. A questionnaire survey was conducted in 2015, with sample data containing 865 respondents and 1704 trips collected. The results suggest that residents’ mode choice is closely related to their characteristics. Moreover, our study has linked residents’ mode choice with travel carbon emissions and estimated the emissions reduction potential of those policy measures aiming to improve public transport. For commuting and education trips, public transport improvements can reduce carbon emissions by 12.3~16.6% on average, but for other trip purposes, the reduction is only 2.9~6.8%. As commuting and education trips account for the largest proportion of urban residents’ daily travels, it suggests that policy should primarily focus on the improvement of public transport and its particular support for major commuting routes.

Abstract Although the environmental benefit from implementing a climate tax is usually realized, the economic dividend still remains a controversial issue warranting further research. This is because the impact of an environmental policy on an economy-wide system will depend on factors that differ from one region to the next. In this paper, we develop a static CGE model for Liberia that is capable of analyzing both a uniform and a partial carbon tax policy. Under the uniform policy instituted to ensure mitigation in the range of 20–50%, an economic dividend is found for energy, employment, and welfare. In particular, energy consumption increases by between 5 and 15.5%, respectively. Interestingly, under a second best policy which exempts economically strategic sectors from the tax, no economic dividend is found for all three variables. This time, energy use declines by between 2 and 9%. These suggest that a uniform environmental tax policy is a more viable option for Liberia, in particular, as it does not only generate economic dividend for employment and welfare, it also incentivizes Liberia's adoption and use of renewable energy technologies. In general, based on the results obtained, further conditions for the feasibility of a double dividend are proposed.

Research on the nexus between energy consumption and economic growth is a fundamental topic for energy policy making and low-carbon economic development. Russia proves the third largest energy consumption country in the world in recent years, while little research has shed light upon its energy consumption issue till now, especially its energy–growth nexus. Therefore, this paper empirically investigates the dynamic nexus of the two variables in Russia based on the state space model. The results indicate that, first of all, Russia's energy consumption is cointegrated with its economic growth in a time-varying way though they do not have static or average cointegration relationship. Hence it is unsuitable to merely portrait the nexus in an average manner. Second, ever since the year of 2000, Russia's energy efficiency has achieved much more promotion compared with that in previous decades, mainly due to the industrial structure adjustment and technology progress. Third, among BRIC countries, the consistency of Russia's energy consumption and economic growth appears the worst, which suggests the complexity of energy–growth nexus in Russia. Finally, there exists bi-directional causality between Russia's energy consumption and economic growth, though their quantitative proportional relation does not have solid foundation according to the cointegration theory.