A Study On Carbon Lock-in Dilemma And Lock-Out Policy Based On The Perspective Of New Energy

The two oil crises in the1970s made people begin to consider the conflictsbetween the finiteness of energy resources and infinity of economic development, and“The Limits to Growth” undoubtedly casts a shadow over the future of human society.Since the introduction of the energy into the economic model, economists can wellcoordinate the contradiction of economic growth and energy scarcity. However,existed studies have already ignored an important fact: the real economy can rarelyrun in accordance with the macroeconomic model, which make it difficult to realizeenergy revolution. Because the existing energy technologies (such as electricity,transportation systems) and social systems will be combined with each other to forma large complex of self-enhancements, which produces many problems, resulting inmarket and policy failures, and compels economies locked in the high-carbon fossilenergy technology systems in the long term, this phenomenon is named “carbonlock-in Dilemma ". As a result, there is the low proportion of energy consumption,and Moore’s Law is not applicable in technological progress. In the process ofindustrialization and urbanization, China has also failed to get rid of the path taken bythe developed countries and got struck into “carbon lock-in Dilemma”, which greatlyerodes the country’s energy security and ecological environment. Therefore, it is ofgreat theoretical value and practical significance to interpret the causes and solutionsof the “carbon lock-in Dilemma” in the new energy perspective.This dissertation mainly consists of the following three parts:Firstly, the interpretation of the causes and solutions of carbon lock-in Dilemmabased on the theoretical framework of the new energy perspective. Followed byconstructing a mathematical model to derive, under the market equilibrium conditions,the qualitative relationship between the new level of energy consumption with avariety of economic indicators and policy variables, and using multi-country paneldata to make an empirical test, we acquire some revealing conclusions:(1) the levelof economic development, energy prices and public R&D input have a significantrole in promoting new energy consumption level, while fossil energy supply hinder new energy consumption level.(2) energy conservation policy may inhibit the levelof new energy consumption, the role of the carbon tax policy has a general role inpromoting the new energy consumption, while new energy market-pull policy has astrong role.(3)Feed-in tariffs has the very significant role in promoting new energyconsumption, but the New Energy Portfolio Standards has not pass the empiricaltests.(4) the degree of foreign trade liberalization for developing countries has asignificant role in promoting new energy consumption level.(5) there may be aninverted U-shaped curve relationship between per capita energy consumption and percapita carbon emissions.According to the above conclusion, through the steadily implementation andimprove the policy of Feed-in tariffs, to increase public R&D and demonstration ofinputs, and actively participate in the international energy industry division of labor,and vigorously support the development of new energy industry, accelerate the shiftto rational economic development model, China will be able to achieve long-termgoal of the new energy development planning.Second, studying on the new energy market-pull policy. In this paper, theanalysis shows that new energy market-pull policy has a significant role instimulating technological innovation and reduce production costs. With thecomparative study of the Feed-in tariffs and the New Energy Portfolio Standards, theresults found that, from the perspective of cost-effective, effects and the ability tostimulate technological progress, Feed-in tariffs are superior to New Energy PortfolioStandards. Feed-in tariffs is one of the greatest policy innovation in the solutions toenergy crisis and climate change issues, So the government should further improvethe policy of Feed-in tariffs, and policy mix with the introduction of a carbon tax atthe appropriate time, the carbon tax revenue can be used as tariff subsidies fundingsources. On the other hand, there is considerable controversy in the New EnergyPortfolio Standards about the issues of climate benefits, the external costs andexternal benefits.Therefore, there have not been sufficient conditions forimplementation New Energy Portfolio Standards with green certificate tradingmechanism in our country.Third, closely linked to China.(1) although China is the third largest country in coal resources, but the collation of data analysis showed that the carbon lock-in posesa threat to the plight of the long-term interests of China’s energy security. In addition,the carbon lock-in will adversely affect the plight of China’s ecological environmentand the competitive environment. As a result, our country should not go through thesame path of developed countries, we must accelerate the carbon lock-out.(2)Bystudying on the Photovoltaic industries in China, we found that global economicintegration under the new international division of the energy industry will contributeto technological innovation. Therefore, the government should implement Feed-intariffs and industrial policies and financial channels to fostering and supporting thenew energy industry, to lay the foundation for carbon lock-out.(3) the paper analysesgrowth status and bottlenecks in the development of solar photovoltaic industry, andfrom the industrial development of long-term perspective we suggest three-pointpolicy recommendations, including improving the Feed-in tariffs, strengtheningindustrial cooperation, making an overall plan on regional coordination.