Comparative Study On Low-carbon Development In China And European Union

Climate change has become one of the severe issues in the world, it is not only threat human survival and development but also challenge energy security.In addition, the global financial crisis in2009prompted the world to seek new economic growth point.The development of low-carbon economy as a way to address climate change, coordination of socio-economic development, energy security and climate change has gradually gained more and more countries’ recognition.In order to address global climate change and energy security issues, to ensure seize a favorable position in the process of establishing of a new international order, many developed countries have to adjust their development strategies, try transiting to a low-carbon economy.This article make qualitative and quantitative comparative study of China and EU in carbon emissions trends, low-carbon development strategies, policy instrument, the means of implementation, low-carbon development situations.Quantitative studies include:the historical development trends study of China-EU carbon, emissions and study of China-EU low-carbon development current situation based on the decoupling theory, the conclusion of the study are as follows:(1) EU-15countries are basically crossed the peak of inverted U-shaped curve of carbon intensity, but these countries’ carbon intensity peak value and economic development level are quite different in carbon intensity peak period.China’s carbon intensity shows an obvious bimodal curve, carbon intensity peak values appeared in the early1960s and the late1970s separately,then China carbon intensity experienced a longer period of decline, it is rebounded in2000, above facts indicating that China still has not fully achieve a steady decline in carbon intensity.(2) Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States are crossed the per capita carbon emissions peak basically, while Finland, Greece, Italy, Portugal and other countries likely to span the per capita carbon emissions peak, the situation of these countries need to be further observation yet.China still needs more time to achieve across the per capita carbon emissions peak.(3)Only seven EU countries (Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom) crossed the peak of the total carbon emissions. (4)In past half century, most of the developed countries experienced strong decoupling between carbon emissions and economic growth, and these developed countries’ decoupling elasticity values show consistent trend, however, developing countries’ economic growth and carbon emissions decoupling trends are quite different.Qualitative comparativestudy of China and the EU are mainly focused on the China and EU low-carbon development international leadership, China and EU low-carbon development policies and measures, the results are as follows:(1) The course of EU low-carbon policy development is a process of gradual deepening policy integration, experienced sprout stage (the late1980s), development stage (1990s) and mature (after2000) stage; while China’s low-carbon policy late start, late1990s is the embryonic stage of China’s low-carbon development, China’s low-carbon development policy is still in the development stage so far.EU climate change leadership combines structural leadership, intelligent leadership, direction leadership characteristics,after the Copenhagen conference in2009EU climate change leadership shows downward trend.China has the inherent advantage of structured leadership, at the same time has the potential advantages of the intelligent leadership and direction leadership,China should pursue low-carbon development international leadership by strengthen international exchanges and cooperation, establish a positive image of addressing climate change actively.(2) Control objects of low-carbon development and energy saving in China and greenhouse gas emission reduction in EU is very similar,but they have different policy tools select preferences:China’s current low-carbon policy is the main government regulation, supplemented by market mechanisms, while the main features of the EU low-carbon development policy is based on market mechanisms. By observing the low-carbon policy from the EU and China, we think that application of low-carbon development policy instruments should be adapted to the development stages which can be featured as national carbon emissions, carbon intensity, per capita carbon emissions, and carbon emissions trends and so on.Based on the above qualitative and quantitative research on low-carbon development in China and the European Union, this article presents several proposals for deepening China’s low-carbon development are as follows:Continue to use the traditional policy instruments such as control-command instrument and standard-made instrument;take full account of the conditions of application of policy tools, and promote the market-based policy instruments steadily;improve energy efficiency as the core objective of the recent low-carbon policy tools;explore low-carbon tax policy actively;promote carbon trading marketstep by step.