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Abstract Energy efficiency improvement will reduce the effective price of energy services, and hence at least partially mitigate original expected energy conservation. Therefore, the magnitude of rebound effect is important for the design and timing of an effective energy conservation policy. Under the framework of translog cost share equations, we estimates the direct rebound effect for heavy industry in China for the first time by conducting an empirical research on the relationship between the direct rebound effect and the ease with which energy services can substitute for other inputs. Additionally, asymmetric price responses are specified in the model for the rebound effect estimation. Empirical results in our paper indicate that the rebound effect for heavy industry in China is about 74.3%. This reveals that energy efficiency improvement can save energy to a certain degree since the rebound effect is less than 100% (“back-fire”), but most of the expected reduction in heavy industry energy consumption is mitigated. These findings prove that energy pricing reforms and energy taxes should be further implemented to achieve effective energy conservation in China’s 12th Five Years Plan.

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.

Abstract China is currently the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide (CO2). Vigorously developing new energy sources has become an important way to reduce CO2 emissions. Therefore, more and more scholars have studied effective ways to promote the development of new energy industry. However, most of the existing research use single-equation linear models or static models to study the driving forces of the new energy industry. This not only ignores the large number of dynamic relationships between economic variables, but also produces endogeneity problems. In order to overcome the shortcomings of existing research, this paper uses vector autoregressive model to study the new energy industry. The results show that energy consumption structure has a positive effect on the new energy industry in the short run, but the effect is limited in the long run. The impact of the agriculture industry is gradually narrowing over time due to the gradual reduction of crop acreage. However, the influence of economic growth is positive both in the short and long run. This is due to the gradual optimization of industrial structure. Technological progress produces a similar impact, owing to continued investment in research and development funding as well as research and development personnel.

Abstract Due to high population densities and rapid economic development, great number of cities worldwide rely heavily on external resources, and many are experiencing serious environmental pollution. Municipal governments are facing the issue of balancing the relationship between economic growth and environmental preservation. An urban system is an open, complex, dynamic ecological-economic system with different types of materials and resources. This paper combines emergy theory and System Dynamics (SD) and establishes an emergy-flow SD model of an urban eco-economic system that includes economic, population, waste and emergy sub-models. Three scenarios with different economic growth rates and investments in environmental preservation are designed to analyze the sustainable development capacity of Beijing under different scenarios. The results of the analysis show that current economic development in Beijing highly depends on resources consumption, especially the consumption of imported resources. Based on the current growth rate, development in Beijing will heavily depend on external resources that may make the system being more fragile in the future. A lower economic growth rate and a small increase in environmental preservation investment are more suitable for in Beijing than area higher economic growth rate and a large increase in environmental preservation investment.

The Chinese province of Shandong, and more particularly its cities Dezhou, Jinan and Rizhao, have established an international reputation of being hotbeds for solar water heating (SWH) technology development and dissemination. The article aims to unveil the evolution of this innovative environment by applying the Functions of Innovation Systems (FIS) approach to the Chinese province of Shandong. It examines the actors, institutions and policy instruments that shape Shandong's innovation system for SWH, the dominant drivers and barriers during the evolution of the TIS and also assesses the applicability of the IS approach to China. It appears that the presence of influential interest organizations and proactive support from local governments have acted as strong drivers for the emergence of Shandong's innovation system for SWHs. On the other hand, the lack of adequate personnel and an overreliance on government policies act as main barriers. With regard to the Chinese specificities potentially detracting from the relevance of applying IS theory to China, we did not find that the central government acted as an initiator of innovation nor that state-owned enterprises had dominant positions in the market. In this innovative industry the impetus for development came from the bottom up and from private corporations.

Abstract Because nearly five years have passed since China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was implemented, there is an urgent need to explore whether it has significantly promoted provincial green economy development. Focusing on the primary provinces along its route, this study uses a GML index based on SBM directional distance function to evaluate provincial green total factor productivity (GTFP) and quantitatively analyses the BRI's net effect on provincial GTFP. The results indicate that provincial GTFP development is relatively good, with technological progress being its main driving force, there are significant differences between the regional GTFP development along the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) and the Maritime Silk Road (MSR), and the BRI has played a significant role in promoting provincial and two regional GTFP. R&D investment inhibits provincial GTFP development while it is not significant. There is a U-shaped relationship between economic development and GTFP, a negative correlation between the current provincial economic level and GTFP. Trade between provinces and countries along the route has a negative effect on GTFP. To promote GTFP development, the provinces should value foreign trade, improve innovation mechanism, cultivate talents and actively embed in the BRI construction.

Abstract Low-carbon economy has played an important role in green energy economics in last two decades. The number of studies conducted on low-carbon economy has increased steadily since 1990 and now in a fast-growing stage of its academic articles’ production life cycle. An increasing number of scholars have paid their attentions to low-carbon economy research. Hence, the low-carbon economy has been an important and popular topic in the past 30 years as evidenced by numerous papers in journals listed in several subject categories in the Web of Science (WoS) online database. This research reviewed more than 14,000 bibliographic records from the Science Citation Index and Social Science Citation Index of WoS. In this work, paper citations, subject categories, cited journals, top countries, productive institutes, authors, cited references and publications’ citations or research collaborations are analysed from published literature. We have found that the top three productive journals in low-carbon economy research are Energy Policy, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews and Journal of Cleaner Production. The U.S. has an apparent advantage in the quantity and quality of low-carbon economy research. In addition, the U.S. is in the centre of international collaboration networks, including two top productive institutes, which summarized as University of California Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon University accordingly. An overall trend of the developing analysis of low-carbon economy research can provide a clear knowledge map and deep understanding of academic research on low-carbon economy.

Abstract There are cross subsidies in China's power industry and there is a gap between supply cost and the sales price of electricity to residents and enterprises. Enterprises pay for part of residents' electricity bills. As cross subsidies always have been criticized, this paper simulates counterfactual scenarios of removing cross subsidy by applying a dynamic recursive computable general equilibrium model. Based on the scenario analysis, the elimination of cross subsidy will have positive impact on economic performance, but negative on CO2 mitigation, industrial structure, and social welfare. Eliminating cross subsidies can reduce commodity prices, improve the competitiveness of enterprises, especially power-intensive enterprises. However, China is somehow an export-oriented country. Only a part of the benefits of the decrease in the product price is obtained by domestic households. Maybe removing cross subsidies is not a good policy in this kind of countries. However, under the background of power system reform, cross subsidy may not last long, and the price will not be regulated. With the marketization of electricity trading, appropriate imposed environmental tax or carbon tax will be more conducive to China's low-carbon development.

Abstract This paper reviews the current situation of bioenergy development in China, particularly on its relationship to sustainable rural development. It argues that the current government strategy, investment policy and industrial interest are over-emphasized on biomass-burning power generation as part of the clean energy development trajectories, which may not lead to the most cost-effective outcomes in terms of investments, resource use and social development objectives. It points out that there are large potentials in developing and disseminating household-based biomass technologies in rural areas, especially with energy-efficient modern biomass stoves, which can produce far more economic, social and environmental benefits than biomass power plants. It is a decentralized solution to use renewable energy resources for meeting multi-objectives. It is suggested that key incentive policies be provided by the government to encourage this technological transition, or the leapfrogging from using traditional household stoves towards modern biomass stoves, which will lead to a win–win situation in global, regional and local environmental protection, sustainable resource management and related social benefits, particularly for the poor in remote communities. Six policy recommendations are made: (1) financial schemes development; (2) preferable tax and carbon tax; (3) regulatory policy reform; (4) service industry support; (5) market research, training and capacity building for key stakeholders; (6) development of methodologies and standards for CDM projects. The potential co-benefits brought up by this massive biomass technology transition will bring new perspectives to realizing Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and global CO2 emissions reduction targets in China, and also set an example to other developing countries.