Browsing by Author "Zhang, Junjie"

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    A Guideline of China’s City-Level Decarbonization Planning --- With a Case of an Island City in Northern China
    (2023-04-28) Yi, Siying; Lu, Yifei
    Urgent action is needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate global warming, which leads to ecosystem degradation, extreme weather events, and economic and human risks. The Paris Agreement's goals can be achieved by establishing emission reduction targets and decarbonizing the economy. China, the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, aims to reach carbon peaking by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060. Urban areas account for 85% of China's emissions, making it crucial for cities to adopt decarbonization measures to fulfill the national targets. Therefore, many city governments have developed decarbonization plans to explore low-carbon development opportunities. Based on a client project, this policy report focuses on the Chinese context and aims to provide practical knowledge for urban development planners, policymakers, and the public interested in decarbonization issues. The report clarifies the concept of decarbonization planning and provides a comprehensive planning guideline, including greenhouse gas inventory, future emissions forecast, setting decarbonization targets, and developing action plans specific to the region. To illustrate the practical application of the proposed guidelines, the report also includes a case study of an island city in northern China. The GHG inventory shows that the study area's emissions decreased by approximately 56% from 2016 to 2021, primarily due to the promotion of electrification in various industries. The LEAP model-based emissions forecast for the next 40 years reveals the feasibility of the island city achieving carbon neutrality by 2035 under a stringent low-carbon scenario. Based on this analysis, we design and compile a decarbonization action plan for the island city, presenting information on guiding ideology, principles, cross-cutting strategies, necessary decarbonization initiatives for specific sectors, and capacity-building guarantee systems.
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    Assessing Ecological Civilization Performance: An Application of Systematic Economic-Ecological Accounting (SEEA)
    (2019-04-28) Wang, Fanyu
    China's central authority has included constructing ecological civilization among the top-five development strategies of China, but there is no well-developed tool to assess the the local governments' performances on ecological conservation or provide sustained incentives for the local officials. This paper shows that the Systematic Economic-Ecological Accounting (SEEA), an accounting system that records the productive and asset activity of both man-made and ecological capital of the society, is a necessary and feasible assessment tool for ecological civilization. Framework of the accounting system and potential improvements built on current studies are provided. An experimental case that calculates the value of the annual ecosystem services in Kunshan, a county in Jiangsu Province, demonstrates the application of the accounting framework and methods within the current data limitation.
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    Carbon Pricing Induces Innovation: Evidence from China's Regional Carbon Market Pilots
    (AEA Papers and Proceedings, 2018) Cui, Jingbo; Zhang, Junjie; Zheng, Yang
    China has launched seven regional pilots of emission trading scheme (ETS) to limit its carbon emissions. Taking advantage of the variations in the regional ETS pilots across regions and sectors and over time, we employ a difference-in-difference-in-differences (DDD) approach to evaluate the effect of ETS on low-carbon innovation at the firm level. Using patent application data of publicly-listed firms in China between 2003 and 2015, we find that the ETS pilots induced innovation in low-carbon technologies. The more active pilots—measured by carbon price and turnover rate of allowance trading—are associated with more intense low-carbon innovation.
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    Evaluation of the Pricing of Pollutant Emissions Allowance in Zhejiang Province, China
    (2024-04-26) Chen, Yang; Jin, Xinwei; Zhou, Zili
    Over the past few decades, the pollutant emissions trading policies in China have undergone significant innovation and exploration. It is considered a market-based approach integrated with command-and-control mechanisms such as total emissions control or pollutant emissions allowance. This study is the first to provide systematic, reflective thinking that examines China's regional initiatives of pollutant emissions trading systems. In this article, we took research on the representative province, Zhejiang, as our case study to analyze the impact of the pricing of pollutant emissions allowance on enterprises’ trading behavior, in which the pollutant objects are mainly selected to focus on chemical oxygen demand (COD), ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and nitrogen oxides (NOX). This paper used a quantitative approach by drawing the error lines of allowance auction and transfers among ten cities in Zhejiang Province from 2020 to 2022; then, we provided policy recommendations by exploring the positive and efficient relationship between emissions trading policies and the price of pollutant emissions allowances.
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    Legal Nature of The Emission Allowance in China's National Carbon Trading Scheme
    (2018-04-25) Liang, Chuwen; Liu, Shijie; Pan, Xin
    Emission trading scheme is a market-based approach used worldwide to reduce greenhouse gas emission and mitigate climate change. However, the legal nature of emission allowance in the ETS is controversial and differs across countries, which brings concerns to the operation of the market and the feasibility of cross-region trading. This issue has been raised in China since its national ETS is initiated in 2017. With few relevant research available, no consensus regarding the legal nature of emission allowance has been achieved in the scheme. In our study, we try to fill this research gap by examining laws and regulations of countries or regions with enforced ETS. Through literature review and case analysis, the study summarizes the practices regarding the legal nature of emission allowances in the ETS worldwide. We also provide potential options and the criteria for Chinese policymakers when deciding the legal nature of emission allowances for China’s ETS. The study finds that the legal nature of emission allowances in the ETS worldwide can mainly fall into four categories: Property Right, Limited Property Right, Compliance instrument and Depend-on-context. Different classifications of emission allowance have different key features. For example, emission allowance as a property right encourages market participation; emission allowance as a compliance instrument provides more regulatory flexibility; emission allowance as the limited property right balances regulatory flexibility and market participation and; emission allowance that depends on context brings flexibility as well as uncertainty. To decide the legal nature of emission allowance for the scheme, the policymaker should take several factors into consideration, including the emission reduction goals, the need for flexibility, the need for market participation, and the corresponding enforcement costs. Further steps to support the decision on legal nature would be researches on the features of emission allowances as different types of property rights, as well as the relevancy between legal nature and the efficiency of carbon trading markets based on empirical data.
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    Pri-miR-124 rs531564 and pri-miR-34b/c rs4938723 polymorphisms are associated with decreased risk of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma in Chinese populations.
    (PloS one, 2014-01) Zhang, Junjie; Huang, Xuewen; Xiao, Juanjuan; Yang, Yajun; Zhou, Yinghui; Wang, Xiaofeng; Liu, Qingmei; Yang, Jingmin; Wang, Mengyun; Qiu, Lixin; Zheng, Yabiao; Zhang, Ping; Li, Jin; Wang, Ya'nong; Wei, Qingyi; Jin, Li; Wang, Jiucun; Wang, Minghua
    MicroRNAs are a new class of small non-protein-coding RNAs that sometimes function as tumor suppressors or oncogenes. Aberrant expression and structural alteration of microRNAs have been reported to be involved in tumorigenesis and cancer development. Recently, rs531564/pri-miR-124-1, rs4938723/pri-miR-34b/c, rs7372209/pri-miR-26a-1, rs895819/pre-miR-27a, and rs11134527/pri-miR-218 were reported to be associated with risks of various cancers. In order to evaluate the relationship of these SNPs and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) risk, we conducted a case-control study with 1109 ESCC patients and 1275 control subjects to examine the potential association of these pri/pre-miRNA polymorphisms with ESCC susceptibility. As a result, two SNPs were associated with a significant risk of ESCC. We found that the GG genotype of pri-miR-124-1 rs531564 was associated to a significantly decreased risk of ESCC comparing with the CC/CG genotypes (p = 0.005; OR = 0.61, 95% CI = 0.43-0.86). In addition, the CC genotype of pri-miR-34b/c rs4938723 was associated with a significant decreased risk of ESCC (CC VS.p = 0.007, OR = 0.82, 95% CI = 0.71-0.95) in Chinese population. The present study provides the first evidence that pri-miR-124-1 rs531564 and pri-miR-34 rs4938723 were associated with the risk of ESCC in Chinese population.
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    The effectiveness of China's regional carbon market pilots in reducing firm emissions.
    (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2021-12) Cui, Jingbo; Wang, Chunhua; Zhang, Junjie; Zheng, Yang
    China has implemented an emission trading system (ETS) to reduce its ever-increasing greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining rapid economic growth. With low carbon prices and infrequent allowance trading, whether China's ETS is an effective approach for climate mitigation has entered the center of the policy and research debate. Utilizing China's regional ETS pilots as a quasi-natural experiment, we provide a comprehensive assessment of the effects of ETS on firm carbon emissions and economic outcomes by means of a matched difference-in-differences (DID) approach. The empirical analysis is based on a unique panel dataset of firm tax records in the manufacturing and public utility sectors during 2009 to 2015. We show unambiguous evidence that the regional ETS pilots are effective in reducing firm emissions, leading to a 16.7% reduction in total emissions and a 9.7% reduction in emission intensity. Regulated firms achieve emission abatement through conserving energy consumption and switching to low-carbon fuels. The economic consequences of the ETS are mixed. On one hand, the ETS has a negative impact on employment and capital input; on the other hand, the ETS incentivizes regulated firms to improve productivity. In the aggregate, the ETS does not exhibit statistically significant effects on output and export. We also find that the ETS displays notable heterogeneity across pilots. Mass-based allowance allocation rules, higher carbon prices, and active allowance trading contribute to more pronounced effects in emission abatement.
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    The Impacts of Carbon Pricing on Firm Competitiveness: Evidence from the Regional Carbon Market Pilots in China
    (SSRN Electronic Journal, 2021-03-10) Cui, Jingbo; Zhang, Junjie; Zheng, Yang