Date:
Location:
Speaker: Wang Pu
WANG Pu, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School.
Co-sponsored by the China Project, Harvard Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and the Environment and Natural Resources Program, Harvard Kennedy School.
Abstract: China’s national cap-and-trade program is regarded as a cornerstone of its climate policy outlined in the 13th Five-year plan (2016-2020), published right after the 2015 U.N. Climate Conference in Paris. Since China has accounted for two thirds of global emissions growth in the past decade, its ambition to control carbon emissions could be a great contribution to the global effort in combating climate change. In addition to emission reduction, China also intends to achieve two other goals through the program: to facilitate economic transition by reducing energy-inefficient industrial sectors and promoting low-carbon industries, and to mitigate severe air pollution in the urban regions. But the program’s effectiveness is contingent on the right institutional settings at both macro and micro levels. The speaker will review the major challenges for the program in accomplishing the policy goals, and discuss the efficiency and equity tradeoffs of different allowance allocation methods in the cap-and-trade program.
