Toward a more open and collaborative climate change policy framework in Hong Kong and Macao within the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area

The special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao enjoy a high degree of autonomy from the national policy system in devising their local policies,including measures related to climate change.Hong Kong and Macao each have their own climate change policies,some aspects of which are more advanced than policies in China's Mainland.While their high degree of policy autonomy has advantages,this has also isolated them from China's larger environmental management and practices that continue to advance at scale.This paper reviews the climate change policies of the two special administrative regions and analyzes their strengths and innovations,particularly in adaptation.It also identifies areas where there could be closer engagement,collaboration,and capacity-building with the China's Mainland,which has the potential for greater positive impacts,especially on a regional basis.

Governing Climate Change Adaptation in the EU and China:An Analysis of Formal Institutions

Both the European Union （EU） and China are culturally, economically, climatologically and environmentally diverse polities. The EU is a multi-state grouping of economically developed democratic countries, while China is a unitary sovereign state and a developing economy with a strong government bureaucracy. Our hypothesis is that given their diverse political systems, the EU and China would develop different kinds of systems for the governance of adaptation to climate change. We test this hypothesis through a comparative analysis of policy documents from the two study areas, in which we examine framework policies, programmatic actions and specific actions that have been adopted to date in order to address climate change, with a specific focus on the water sector. We find that climate change adaptation began to be addressed through formal policy on a similar timeline in the two regions. The EU and China are also similar in that they use framework laws and existing sectoral policy, such as for the water sector. We find that the EU has primarily relied on integration of climate change adaptation concerns through legal instruments which set a framework for implementation of adaptation policy. In China, specific actions to be incorporated in socio-economic development plans under the existing legislation on adaptation have been the main mode for integrating adaptation into sectoral actions, though the future trend may be to develop more regulations.

China's adjustment of climate change policies:what lessons can be learned from the US?

From the US New Energy Plan, personnel appointment, and diplomatic activities, etc., we can see that US is now on the way to returning to the negotiation table and undertaking the leadership in addressing climate change. What US has done puts tremendous challenges on China, which emits large amount of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. However, different from US, China is undergoing rapid development, and huge energy consumption is unavoidable. China has to make a balance between developing economy and addressing climate change. This paper focuses on the US climate change policies and its greenhouse gas emissions, and its influences on China climate change policy. China greenhouse gas emissions and relative policies are also analyzed to see what situation China is in, and what challenges that China is facing. Consequently, combing China's local situation, we propose several solutions for China to address climate change, i.e. moving towards a low carbon economy, struggling for emitting more, enhancing China-US cooperation, and implementing different climate change policies based on local situation. Meanwhile, the achievements that China has made are also introduced.

Economic Implications of CO2 Emission Reduction in Japan Applying a Dynamic CGE Model with Endogenous Technological Change： Use of Emission Permit Revenue

This study analyzes the economic and environmental impacts of a climate change measure in Japan using a single-country dynamic computable general equilibrium model with technological change as an endogenous variable. In this way, a comprehensive analysis of the relationships between climate change and its measures, technology, and economy has been done. The model uses technological change as the accumulation of knowledge capital that is derived from research and development investment. The study investigates the impacts of a climate change measure considering the use of emission permit revenue and technological change induced by the policy implementation in the Japanese economy. Simulation results show that there is compatibility between CO2 emission reduction and positive effects on GDP that depends on the ways of the revenue use and technological change induced by emission reduction. However, it is not possible to find the ways to realize positive effects on both GDP and welfare simultaneously in the study. The sensitivity analysis for the elasticity of substitution between knowledge capital and other inputs also confirms the obtained results.

Economic Analysis of CO2 Emission Abatement Applying a Dynamic CGE Model with Endogenous Technological Change： Impacts of the Time Horizon

We evaluate economic and environmental impacts of climate change mitigation in a country scale considering various time horizons in the analysis applying a single-country dynamic computable general equilibrium model with endogenous technological change. Although there is a possibility that Gross Domestic Product （GDP） becomes larger for the abatement cases than the baseline case in the earlier years, it tends to be lower than that in the later years. The longer the time horizon and/or the more severe the abatement, the larger the negative impacts will be. When subsidizing R＆D investment, increase in GDP compared to the baseline case is realized in the middle of the time horizon, and the larger increase tends to be observed for the longer-term cases. These results would be due to technological change induced by the subsidies and emission abatement. Environmental indicators are also improved. We showed that the results were influenced by the target time horizon when using an intertemporal dynamic model.

China's Role in Global Climate Change Mitigation

China contributed a majority of the growth in global greenhouse gas emissions in the first 11 years of this century The trajectory of emissions has changed radically since then, as China has irrplemented its Cancun 2010 commitment to reduce the 2005 emissions intensity of economic activity by 40-45percent by 2020. The change in trajectory has been reinforced by China＇s new model of economic growth, with its greater emphasis on equity in income distribution, consumption and services. The large-scale deployment of low emissions technology in China is lowering the cost of transition to a low carbon economy all over the world. China ＇ s new emissions trajectory improves the opportunity For the international community to meet the 2℃ climate target. It is essential that the changes in China are brought to account in shaping global mitigation ambition.

Climate pledges versus commitment: Are policy actions of Middle-East and North African countries consistent with their emissions targets?

Carbon emission is inevitable,and changes with energy consumption and economic development,presents policy options toward sustainable development path.Currently,there is little assurance from policymakers in committing to climate change pledges:taking the Middle-East and North African(MENA)region as a specific case with using 2019 as a cut-off period.We conducted an interim assessment of the Paris Agreement to ascertain whether climate actions are in tandem with emissions reduction targets.Making use of difference-in-difference technique as a quasiexperiment supported by fixed-effects and placebo treatment models,the results point to evidence of less than 1%effective CO_(2) emissions reduction as of 2019 compared to the 2015 level.The current carbon emissions reduction commitment level is far-reaching contrary to the Nationally Determined Contributions(NDCs)pledged(16.43%on average by 2030 compared to the 2015 level).The analysis suggests that achieving NDCs commitments are currently major burden on policymakers since the economic development is highly linked with nonrenewable energy consumption.Furthermore,a more comprehensive framework when accounting for all available renewable and clean energy projects shows reduction levels in the range of 30%-40%from 2020 to 2030.These results suggest that the Paris Agreement in MENA countries may be more effective from 2020,thus underscore the importance of capturing ongoing projects(involving renewable and clean energy technologies)into interim policy assessment.The shared implication is that greater efforts are demanded from the region and at country levels to further decrease emissions through the use of negative emissions technologies particularly in the electricity generation sector.

Modeling and assessing international climate financing

Climate financing is a key issue in current negotiations on climate protection. This study establishes a climate financing model based on a mechanism in which donor countries set up funds for climate financing and recipient countries use the funds exclusively for carbon emission reduction. The burden-sharing principles are based on GDP, historical emissions, and consumption- based emissions. Using this model, we develop and analyze a series of scenario simulations, including a financing program negotiated at the Cancun Climate Change Conference （2010） and several subsequent programs. Results show that sustained climate financing can help to combat global climate change. However, the Cancun Agreements are projected to result in a reduction of only 0.0I^C in global warming by 2100 compared to the scenario without climate financing. Longer-term climate financing programs should be established to achieve more significant benefits. Our model and simulations also show that climate financing has economic benefits for develop- ing countries. Developed countries will suffer a slight GDP loss in the early stages of climate financing, but the long- term economic growth and the eventual benefits of climate mitigation will compensate for this slight loss. Different burden-sharing principles have very similar effects on global temperature change and economic growth of recipient countries, but they do result in differences in GDP changes for Japan and the FSU. The GDP-based principle results in a larger share of financial burden for Japan, while the historical emissions-based principle results in a larger share of financial burden for the FSU. A larger burden share leads to a greater GDP loss.