China's national emissions trading scheme (ETS) is expected to be operational in 2017. Effectively addressing regional disparities at the provincial level in allowance allocation will greatly affect the acceptance of the allocation approach and thus deserves careful consideration. This article aims to explore possible approaches for addressing regional disparities, by introducing regional adjustment factors (RAF) in free allowance allocation. Based on the principle of ‘national unified rules?+?stricter adjustment by provincial authorities’, four single factorial and three multi-factorial methods are proposed to calculate the RAFs, through a normalization process. These methods are associated with the most acknowledged factors dealing with regional disparities, including per-capita GDP; per-capita CO2 emissions; industrial sector contribution to GDP; economy-wide emissions control targets and CO2 emissions per unit GDP, per unit power and heat output and per unit industrial added value. A comparative analysis is made for the seven methods, in regard to value distribution and level of matching regional political demand.Key policy insights
‘Allowing stricter regional adjustment’ represents a dominant feature for China's national ETS, which aims to address regional disparities and government demands.
How the adjustment plan is designed will have a major influence on the operation of the national ETS and regional business competitiveness. Provincial governments need to consider the trade-off between auction revenue and local business competitiveness.
Applying the different methods leads to more scattered results for some regions, for whom the choice of adjustment approach will therefore have a greater impact.
Based on the analysis, four adjustment methods that generate similar results – the per-capita GDP-based method, the intensity reduction target-based method, the 12th FYP target-based method and intensity-based grandfathering – are recommended for most provincial-level regions, with some exceptions.
Vegetation population dynamics play an essential role in shaping the structure and function of terrestrial ecosystems.However,large uncertainties remain in the parameterizations of population dynamics in current Dynamic Global Vegetation Models(DGVMs).In this study,the global distribution and probability density functions of tree population densities in the revised Community Land Model-Dynamic Global Vegetation Model(CLM-DGVM) were evaluated,and the impacts of population densities on ecosystem characteristics were investigated.The results showed that the model predicted unrealistically high population density with small individual size of tree PFTs(Plant Functional Types) in boreal forests,as well as peripheral areas of tropical and temperate forests.Such biases then led to the underestimation of forest carbon storage and incorrect carbon allocation among plant leaves,stems and root pools,and hence predicted shorter time scales for the building/recovering of mature forests.These results imply that further improvements in the parameterizations of population dynamics in the model are needed in order for the model to correctly represent the response of ecosystems to climate change. 相似文献
Over 40 studies that analyse future GHG emissions allowances or reduction targets for different regions based on a wide range of effort-sharing approaches and long-term concentration stabilization levels are compared. This updates previous work undertaken for the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Regional reduction targets differ significantly for each effort-sharing approach. For example, in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 1990 region, new proposals that emphasize the equity principles of responsibility, capability, and need, and those based on equal cumulative per capita emissions (carbon budgets), lead to relatively stringent emissions reduction targets. In order to reach a low concentration stabilization level of 450?ppm CO2e, the allowances under all effort sharing approaches in OECD1990 for 2030 would be approximately half of the emissions of 2010 with a large range, roughly two-thirds in the Economies in Transition (EIT), roughly at the 2010 emissions level or slightly below in Asia, slightly above the 2010 level in the Middle East and Africa and well below the 2010 level in Latin America. For 2050, allowances in OECD1990 and EIT would be a fraction of today's emissions, approximately half of 2010 emission levels in Asia, and possibly less than half of the 2010 level in Latin America.Policy relevanceThe concept of equity and the stringency of future national GHG reduction targets are at the heart of the current debate on the new international climate change agreement to be adopted in 2015. Policy insights gained from an analysis of over 40 studies, which have quantitatively analysed the proposed GHG reduction targets, are presented. It is found that the outcome of effort-sharing approaches is often largely determined by the way the equity principle is implemented and that the distributional impacts of such approaches can be significantly different depending on the criteria used, the stabilization level and shape of the global emissions pathway. However, the current literature only covers a small proportion of the possible allocation approaches. There should thus be an in-depth modelling comparison to ensure consistency and comparability of results and inform decision making regarding the reduction of GHG emissions. 相似文献