It is Worth Pondering Whether a Carbon Tax is Suitable for China’s Agricultural-Related Sectors

Abstract

Studying the characteristics, trends, and evolution of carbon emissions in agricultural related sectors is of great significance for rational formulation of carbon emission reduction policies. However, as an important carbon emission reduction policy, carbon tax has been controversial over whether or not it should be levied on China. Based on this consideration, this paper takes China’s agricultural related sectors as an example and analyzes the degree of carbon tax on macro-environment, macroeconomy, and agricultural sectors during the period 2020–2050 by constructing a 3EAD-CGE (economy-energy-environmental-agricultural-dynamics Computable General Equilibrium) model. The results show that: (1) carbon tax has a time effect, specifically, the short-term effect is better than the long-term. (2) If the incremental rate of carbon tax is carried out alone, it will exert a great influence on the macroeconomy as well as on most of the agricultural related sectors. (3) If a carbon tax is introduced at the same time as indirect taxes are cut (proportionally), the policy will exert a negative impact on agriculture-related sectors that are subsidized. However, the policy will have a positive impact on those nonsubsidized sectors. Finally, based on the results, we put forward some suggestions that are more suitable for the introduction of a carbon tax in China’s agricultural-related sectors.