近二十年低碳经济研究进展及未来趋势

Prospects of a Low Carbon Economy in the Last Two Decades

气候变暖的核心在于碳排放,人类传统的经济发展方式是高碳经济。而低碳经济则是以二氧化碳等温室气体减排为基本特征的经济形态,主要表现为经济低碳化和低碳经济化。碳排放和碳减排是国际外部性和代际外部性并存的环境问题,由此出现"吉登斯悖论"。发展低碳经济的核心是碳减排,促进碳减排的政策手段主要是基于庇古税理论的财税手段和基于科斯定理的碳交易手段。而碳税的"双重红利"假说有待进一步检验,全球和中国的碳交易机制设计也有待进一步改进。初始碳排放权的分配、碳减排的政策手段选择、碳减排的成本收益比较、区域碳减排的政策设计、碳减排与能源定价机制的关联等均可能是低碳经济研究的重点领域。

The fundamental cause of global warming is carbon emission. The traditional mode of economic development is high-carbon economy. In contrast, low-carbon economy features the reduction of carbon dioxide （CO2） and other greenhouse gases （GHG）. Carbon dioxide emission and emission reduction are classical environmental issues resulting from cross-border externalities and intergenerational externalities, which lead to the ＂Giddens Paradox＂. Cutting down on carbon dioxide emission is a crucial step in the development of a low carbon economy. In practice, there are two major policies that have been widely applied in developed countries to control the pollutants. One is the fiscal and tax policy based on the theory of Pigou-tax; another follows Cap-and-Trade which originated from Coase Theorem. The hypothesis of ＂Double Dividend＂ is attractive to researchers and policy-makers, but should be subjected to more careful empirical analysis and the Cap-and-Trademechanism design in China and worldwide needs improvement. Future research on low carbon economy may focus on the initial distribution of carbon dioxide permits, selection of carbon reduction policies, cost benefit analysis of carbon reduction, policy design of regional carbon reduction, as well as the relevance between carbon reduction and energy pricing mechanism.