A nonparametric distance function approach with endogenous direction for estimating marginal abatement costs of CO_(2) emissions

The directional distance function(DDF)framework has been widely used to estimate the marginal abatement cost(MAC)of CO_(2)emissions to support decision-making in environmental sustainability and climate change issues.In the use of DDF,an important task is mapping evaluated entities towards a realistic production technology frontier.This study develops a new nonparametric approach for estimating the MAC of CO_(2)emissions.The approach incorporates the optimal endogenous direction into an enhanced environmental production technology and has three advantages.First,it avoids the arbitrariness in mapping directions.Second,it captures the heterogeneity in optimization paths across different decision-making units(DMUs).Third,it generates more reliable benchmarks for estimating MAC by constructing an environmental technology frontier that is consistent with the material balance principle.We apply the approach to study China's thermal power industry and find clear heterogeneity in MACs and optimization paths at the province level.The results on the optimal endogenous directions show that the DMUs prefer to increase both desirable output and CO_(2)emissions when CO_(2)emissions are unregulated.Comparisons with other approaches reveal that arbitrarily mapping exogenous directions and technology representations are likely to generate distorted and unrealistic MACs.

Achieving air pollutant emission reduction targets with minimum abatement costs:An enterprise-level allocation method with constraints of fairness and feasibility

For achieving air pollutant emission reduction targets,total pollutant amount control is being continuously promoted in China.However,the traditional pattern of pollutant emission reduction allocation regardless of economic cost often results in unreasonable emission reduction pathways,and industrial enterprises as the main implementers have to pay excessively high costs.Therefore,this study adopted economic efficiency as its main consideration,used specific emission reduction measures(ERMs)of industrial enterprises as minimum allocation units,and constructed an enterprise-level pollutant emission reduction allocation(EPERA)model with minimization of the total abatement cost(TAC)as the objective function,and fairness and feasibility as constraints for emission reduction allocation.Taking City M in China as an example,the EPERA model was used to construct a Pareto optimal frontier and obtain the optimal trade-off result.Results showed that under basic and strict emission reduction regulations,the TAC of the optimal trade-off point was reduced by 46.40%and 45.77%,respectively,in comparison with that achieved when only considering fairness,and the Gini coefficient was 0.26 and 0.31,respectively.The abatement target was attained with controllable cost and relatively fair and reasonable allocation.In addition,enterprises allocated different emission reduction quotas under different ERMs had specific characteristics that required targeted optimization of technology and equipment to enable them to achieve optimal emission reduction effects for the same abatement cost.

The dilemma for China’s national carbon trading market:minimizing carbon abatement costs or maximizing net social benefits?

After a decade of planning and trials,China officially launched a national carbon trading in July 2021.Using a standard economic model,this study shows that an unconstrained carbon trading market would face a dilemma between minimizing pollution control costs and maximizing social benefits.We further show that this would be a significant challenge in China.Our results show that areas with higher population densities also would have higher costs for carbon reduction,and hence the polluters in those areas would be net buyers in the national market.Moreover,our analysis indicates a significantly high correlation between carbon dioxide emissions and other local pollutants.Therefore,cross-regional transactions may result in more emission of other pollutants in areas with higher population density under the unconstrained national cap-and-trade system and cause larger losses in social benefits.We call for more studies to address the issue.

Pollutant emission reduction effect through effluent tax,concentration-based effluent standard,or both

There are numerous studies comparing different kinds of environmental taxes and standards.However,forms of environmental standards focused by former researchers are usually quantitybased limits/standards(e.g.pounds per day or pounds per unit of output).Concentration-based emission standard(e.g.milligrams per liter of wastewater) as one important form of environmental standard has not been given much attention.In this article,comparable estimates of their probable effect on enterprise pollution reduction will be developed for concentrationbased effluent standards,effluent taxes,and a combination of both.A linear simulation model is used to clearly and obviously compare the effects of effluent taxes and concentration-based standards within the same figure.With one detailed application to the paper industry,some enlightenment and conclusions-as well as the general applicability of these principles-are then provided:Under the same effluent tax rate,enterprises,groups,and industries that are cleaner will reduce more pollutants than those that have higher pollutant abatement costs.It is recommended that effluent taxes are set by avoiding cutting it even at one stroke and considering the feasibility of pollution-reducing technology in various industries.It is necessary to reduce MAC of enterprises to better stimulate enterprises' or industries' emission reduction by preferential measures,such as high tax rate coordinated by speeding up the depreciation of environmental protection equipment.

Formulation of Locational Marginal Electricity-carbon Price in Power Systems

Decarbonisation of power systems is essential for realising carbon neutrality,in which the economic cost caused by carbon needs to be qualified.Based on the formulation of locational marginal price(LMP),this paper proposes a locational marginal electricity-carbon price(EC-LMP)model to reveal carbon-related costs caused by power consumers.A carbon-priceintegrated optimal power flow(C-OPF)is then developed to maximise economic efficiency of the power system considering the costs of electricity and carbon.Case studies are presented to demonstrate the new formulation and results demonstrate the efficacy of the EC-LMP-based C-OPF on decarbonisation and economy.

Scenario analysis of hydrofluorocarbons emission reduction in China's mobile air-conditioning sector

With the Kigali Amendment(KA)coming into effect in China,the control of hydrofuorocarbons(HFCs)emissions has become more imperative.The mobile air-conditioning(MAC)sector is one of the important HFCs consumer sectors,and therefore studying its feasible mitigation paths and costs is of great significance to Chinas successful implementation of KA.This study used the bottom-up method with updated emission factors to re-evaluate the emission inventory of HFCs from the MAC sector in China from 2005 to 2020.The average annual growth rate of HFCs consumption in the MAC sector is 9.8%,and HFCs emissions have increased from 5.8(5.3-6.2)kt in 2005 to 22.2(20.6-23.8)kt in 2020,with an average annual growth rate of 8.8%.Using the Gompertz model combined with the Weibull function of vehicle survival rate,the ownership and new registrations of internal combustion engine vehicles(ICEVs)and electric vehicles(EVs)in China are predicted.The ownership of ICEVs and EVs is projected to be 310 million and 91 million in 2030,respectively and 2 million and 641 million in 2060,respectively.HFCs emissions in the MAC sector would reach 59.8(55.3-64.3)kt(80.093.0 Mt CO_(2-eq))in 2060 if without any control measure.To implement the KA,the cumulative of 1.6 Gt CO_(2-eq) emissions would be reduced.Under the other two accelerated mitigation scenarios,the MAC sector's HFCs will reach their emissions peak in 2028 and 2025 and achieve zero emissions in 2050 and 2046,respectively.Under the accelerated mitigation with recovery scenario,the cumulative emissions are only 15.0%of the business as usual(BAU)scenario.Using HFO-1234yf as the substitute,the unit abatement cost of the MAC sector is 27.3-37.4 USD _(t)^(-1)CO_(2-eq).