IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v17y2024i22p5587-d1517038.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Interplay Between China’s Regulated and Voluntary Carbon Markets and Its Influence on Renewable Energy Development—A Literature Review

Author

Listed:
  • Florentina Paraschiv

    (Chair of Finance, Zeppelin University, Am Seemooser Horn 20, 88045 Friedrichshafen, Germany
    Institute for Operations Research and Computational Finance, University of St. Gallen, 9000 St. Gallen, Switzerland
    Faculty of Economics and Management, NTNU Business School, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 7491 Trondheim, Norway)

  • Hannah Schmid

    (Chair of Finance, Zeppelin University, Am Seemooser Horn 20, 88045 Friedrichshafen, Germany
    Chair of Institutional Economics, Organisational Governance, Integrity Management and Transcultural Leadership, Leadership Excellence Institute Zeppelin, Zeppelin University, Am Seemooser Horn 20, 88045 Friedrichshafen, Germany)

  • Marten Schmitz

    (Chair of Finance, Zeppelin University, Am Seemooser Horn 20, 88045 Friedrichshafen, Germany)

  • Vivian Dünwald

    (Chair of Finance, Zeppelin University, Am Seemooser Horn 20, 88045 Friedrichshafen, Germany)

  • Emma Groos

    (Chair of Finance, Zeppelin University, Am Seemooser Horn 20, 88045 Friedrichshafen, Germany)

Abstract

This is the first review study that focuses on the interplay between China’s regulated and voluntary carbon markets, the Emissions Trading System (ETS), the China Certified Emission Reduction (CCER) scheme, and their combined influence on the development of renewable energy in the country. Through a comparative literature review of 52 peer-reviewed academic papers published between 2009 and 2024, this study aims to elucidate how these market mechanisms interact to drive renewable energy deployment. The findings indicate that both the ETS and the CCER system positively affect China’s renewable energy landscape. The ETS, with its Cap-and-Trade (CaT) mechanism, sets a cap on total emissions and allows for the trading of emission quotas, thereby creating financial incentives for companies to reduce emissions and invest in renewable energy. The CCER scheme complements the ETS by allowing companies to use the CCER scheme for a capped share of their ETS certificates, whereby the lower CCER price diverts investments to where the saved ton of CO 2 in China is cheapest, further incentivizing investments in renewable energy. This dual mechanism allows for a more flexible and cost-effective approach to achieving emission reduction targets, thereby fostering an environment conducive to investment in renewable energy. It will stimulate additional investment in renewable energy projects in the long run, particularly in economically underdeveloped regions, contributing to both local economic development and national emission reduction targets.

Suggested Citation

  • Florentina Paraschiv & Hannah Schmid & Marten Schmitz & Vivian Dünwald & Emma Groos, 2024. "The Interplay Between China’s Regulated and Voluntary Carbon Markets and Its Influence on Renewable Energy Development—A Literature Review," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(22), pages 1-23, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:17:y:2024:i:22:p:5587-:d:1517038
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/22/5587/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/22/5587/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ralf Martin & Mirabelle Muûls & Ulrich J. Wagner, 2016. "The Impact of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme on Regulated Firms: What Is the Evidence after Ten Years?," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 10(1), pages 129-148.
    2. Cui, Jingbo & Liu, Xi & Sun, Yongping & Yu, Haishan, 2020. "Can CDM projects trigger host countries’ innovation in renewable energy? Evidence of firm-level dataset from China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    3. Shenhai Huang & Chao Du & Xian Jin & Daini Zhang & Shiyan Wen & Zhijie Jia, 2023. "The Impact of Carbon Emission Trading on Renewable Energy: A Comparative Analysis Based on the CGE Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(16), pages 1-16, August.
    4. Lei, Xu & Xin-gang, Zhao, 2023. "The synergistic effect between Renewable Portfolio Standards and carbon emission trading system: A perspective of China," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 211(C), pages 1010-1023.
    5. Wu, Jie & Albrecht, Johan & Fan, Ying & Xia, Yan, 2016. "The design of renewable support schemes and CO2 emissions in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 4-11.
    6. Sha, Ru & Li, Jinye & Ge, Tao, 2021. "How do price distortions of fossil energy sources affect China's green economic efficiency?," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 232(C).
    7. Zhang, Chongchong & Lin, Boqiang, 2024. "Impact of introducing Chinese certified emission reduction scheme to the carbon market: Promoting renewable energy," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 222(C).
    8. Shao-Zhou Qi & Chao-Bo Zhou & Kai Li & Si-Yan Tang, 2021. "Influence of a pilot carbon trading policy on enterprises’ low-carbon innovation in China," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(3), pages 318-336, March.
    9. Fuquan Zhao & Fanlong Bai & Xinglong Liu & Zongwei Liu, 2022. "A Review on Renewable Energy Transition under China’s Carbon Neutrality Target," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-27, November.
    10. Mo, Jian-Lei & Agnolucci, Paolo & Jiang, Mao-Rong & Fan, Ying, 2016. "The impact of Chinese carbon emission trading scheme (ETS) on low carbon energy (LCE) investment," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 271-283.
    11. Lai, Aolin & Wang, Qunwei, 2024. "How coal de-capacity policy affects renewable energy development efficiency? Evidence from China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 286(C).
    12. Qianqian Wei & Sirui Xiao, 2022. "Assessing barriers to the internationalization of China’s certified emission reductions (CCERs): a Delphi survey," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(7), pages 906-917, August.
    13. Chen, Dengke & Chen, Shiyi & Jin, Hao & Lu, Yulin, 2020. "The impact of energy regulation on energy intensity and energy structure: Firm-level evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    14. Gezi Chen & Zhenhua Hu & Shijin Xiang & Ailan Xu, 2024. "The Impact of Carbon Emissions Trading on the Total Factor Productivity of China’s Electric Power Enterprises—An Empirical Analysis Based on the Differences-in-Differences Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(7), pages 1-17, March.
    15. Lin, Boqiang & Jia, Zhijie, 2020. "Is emission trading scheme an opportunity for renewable energy in China? A perspective of ETS revenue redistributions," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 263(C).
    16. Dong, Changgui & Zhou, Runmin & Li, Jiaying, 2021. "Rushing for subsidies: The impact of feed-in tariffs on solar photovoltaic capacity development in China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 281(C).
    17. Yan, Jingchi, 2021. "The impact of climate policy on fossil fuel consumption: Evidence from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI)," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Liu, Jing-Yue & Zhang, Yue-Jun, 2021. "Has carbon emissions trading system promoted non-fossil energy development in China?," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 302(C).
    2. Zhang, Chongchong & Lin, Boqiang, 2024. "Impact of introducing Chinese certified emission reduction scheme to the carbon market: Promoting renewable energy," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 222(C).
    3. Lessmann, Christian & Kramer, Niklas, 2024. "The effect of cap-and-trade on sectoral emissions: Evidence from California," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    4. Yuan, Zhen & Xu, Jie & Li, Bing & Yao, Tingting, 2022. "Limits of technological progress in controlling energy consumption: Evidence from the energy rebound effects across China's industrial sector," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).
    5. Wang, Yafei & Liao, Meng & Wang, Yafei & Xu, Lixiao & Malik, Arunima, 2021. "The impact of foreign direct investment on China's carbon emissions through energy intensity and emissions trading system," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    6. Wenyang Huang & Huiwen Wang & Yigang Wei, 2018. "Endogenous or Exogenous? Examining Trans-Boundary Air Pollution by Using the Air Quality Index (AQI): A Case Study of 30 Provinces and Autonomous Regions in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-20, November.
    7. Liu, Ming & Shan, Yanfei & Li, Yemei, 2022. "Study on the effect of carbon trading regulation on green innovation and heterogeneity analysis from China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    8. Zhang, Ning & Wang, Shuo, 2024. "Can China's regional carbon market pilots improve power plants' energy efficiency?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    9. Yu, Fan & Xiao, De & Chang, Meng-Shiuh, 2021. "The impact of carbon emission trading schemes on urban-rural income inequality in China: A multi-period difference-in-differences method," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    10. Lingzhang Kong & Jinye Li, 2022. "Digital Economy Development and Green Economic Efficiency: Evidence from Province-Level Empirical Data in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-26, December.
    11. Fang, Sheng & Lu, Xinsheng & Li, Jianfeng & Qu, Ling, 2018. "Multifractal detrended cross-correlation analysis of carbon emission allowance and stock returns," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 509(C), pages 551-566.
    12. Kwag, Kyuhyeong & Shin, Hansol & Oh, Hyobin & Yun, Sangmin & Kim, Tae Hyun & Hwang, Pyeong-Ik & Kim, Wook, 2023. "Bilevel programming approach for the quantitative analysis of renewable portfolio standards considering the electricity market," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 263(PD).
    13. Lin, Boqiang & Xu, Chongchong, 2024. "The effects of industrial robots on firm energy intensity: From the perspective of technological innovation and electrification," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    14. Liu, Menghe & Li, Yuxiao, 2022. "Environmental regulation and green innovation: Evidence from China's carbon emissions trading policy," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 48(C).
    15. Yinan Wang & Heng Chen & Shuyuan Zhao & Lanxin Fan & Cheng Xin & Xue Jiang & Fan Yao, 2024. "Benefit Evaluation of Carbon Reduction in Power Transmission and Transformation Projects Based on the Modified TOPSIS-RSR Method," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(12), pages 1-23, June.
    16. Löschel, Andreas & Lutz, Benjamin Johannes & Managi, Shunsuke, 2019. "The impacts of the EU ETS on efficiency and economic performance – An empirical analyses for German manufacturing firms," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 71-95.
    17. Fei Yang & Chunchen Wang, 2023. "Clean energy, emission trading policy, and CO2 emissions: Evidence from China," Energy & Environment, , vol. 34(5), pages 1657-1673, August.
    18. Grafström, Jonas & Poudineh, Rahmat, 2023. "No evidence of counteracting policy effects on European solar power invention and diffusion," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    19. Stuart Evans & Michael A. Mehling & Robert A. Ritz & Paul Sammon, 2021. "Border carbon adjustments and industrial competitiveness in a European Green Deal," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(3), pages 307-317, March.
    20. Cristian Mardones & Pablo Herreros, 2023. "Ex post evaluation of voluntary environmental policies on the energy intensity in Chilean firms," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(9), pages 9111-9136, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:17:y:2024:i:22:p:5587-:d:1517038. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.