Energy, Climate and Environmental Policy in China: Introduction to the Special Double Issue

Abstract

China's rampant environmental pollution problems and rising greenhouse gas emissions and the resulting climate change are undermining its long-term economic growth. China, from its own perspective cannot afford to and, from an international perspective, is not meant to continue on the conventional path of encouraging economic growth at the expense of the environment. Clearly, balancing China's energy needs to fuel its economic growth with the resulting potential impacts of climate change presents an enormous climate policy dilemma, not simply for China but for the entire world. Dealing with such a challenging issue not only needs warm hearts, but even more importantly cool heads. It is in this spirit that, in this special double issue of Energy and Environment, leading scholars from China and their collaborators tackle a select set of key issues that China is facing, including China's energy price issues, energy and carbon mitigation policy and their distributional aspects and regional dimensions, and energy statistics. The insights from their analyses not only contribute to deepening our understanding of the key issues in China's energy, climate and environmental policy debate, but also help to formulate mutually supportive policies to facilitate China's transition to a low-carbon economy.