One method to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to subsidize emissions-reducing activities. The question is how to allocate such subsidies. Allocation through auctions is an emerging mechanism. In a controlled experimental market setting, this paper compares the effects of a variety of auction mechanisms for allocating subsidies for carbon emissions reduction in China. Besides the conventional auction mechanisms, this discussion paper place particular focus on testing the actual performance of the auction mechanism proposed by Erik Maskin (2011). The authors find that, while the Maskin auction mechanism spends the most from a fixed subsidy budget and leads to the largest emissions reduction, its per-unit emissions reduction cost is higher than that of discriminatory and uniform-price auction mechanisms. Both the Maskin and uniform-price auctions outperform discriminatory auctions in price discovery. Furthermore, from the government’s perspective, the Maskin auctions exhibit the strongest improvement tendency with repeated auctions.
This paper presents three individual cases of a wind turbine producer, a wind farm and a wind blade producer to illustrate how foreign collaboration and technology, choice of deployment strategy, and government policy have influenced the sector to continually improve its technology. The findings indicate that foreign technology and collaboration have had a significant role in helping wind energy technology to develop in China, and were also key elements in stimulating indigenous innovation when high prices held the domestic wind market back from massive expansion. While public policy has played a key role in many aspects of the development of the innovation path, the long-term, enduring goal of developing the required technology was the essential driver. The development of the wind sector occurred alongside the economic development and social improvement of the nation. Thus, while it may be too soon to predict the future path of innovation for Chinese wind energy technology, an emphasis on research and development and increasing international competition is a trend that is likely to continue.
This article looks at how China has moved forward in embracing green technology development, the government’s role in that growth and whether its support is truly harmful on a global scale. It highlights key laws in the United States and the WTO involving trade - specifically subsidies, countervailing duties and anti-dumping regulations. An examination of recent trade cases involving the United States and China is followed by an analysis of America’s recent trade-oriented actions and legislation. Lastly, this article considers the legal implications of recent trade developments between these countries as well as policy implications, including the effect on the green and renewables industry.
Pathways to Scale, the Inquiry`s third progress report, explores how innovative ideas and practices can be made more effective, adopted more widely, and taken to scale—and as a result move the trillions that are required. Scaling-up proven but limited innovations, is a common development challenge, requiring the adept handling of inevitable technical and institutional barriers, and the creation of viable pathways which can overcome outdated but often resilient conventional wisdoms.
Domestic climate policies and the actual environmental performance differ between emerging economies. Using a fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), this paper tests the influence of the domestic green industry, the ratio of fossil fuels to financial power, the international negotiating position, and the environmental civil society in Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Mexico, and South Africa. A bad ratio of domestic fossil fuel production to financial power and a weak environmental civil society are a sufficient condition for weak climate policy performance. A weak domestic green industry combined with a weak influence of the negotiations only explains some of the cases.