A Study On Carbon Lock-in Dilemma And Carbon Unlocking Based On The Perspective Of Technology And Institution

With the development of industrialization and urbanization,China’s economic growth and social life have been locked in the high-carbon fossil energy technology systems and fallen into the so-called "Carbon Lock-In" dilemma gradually,which is threatening the economy development,environment,energy security,industrial restructuring. People are more concerned about how to control carbon emissions than the essential reasons for the formation of "Carbon Lock-In". Therefore,this paper will interpret the formation of "Carbon Lock-In" and the solutions of "Carbon Unlocking" from the perspective of technology and institution interpretation,and preliminary build the governance system of "Carbon Lock-In".This paper mainly includes the following three parts:First,the main source and the practical reasons of China’s "Carbon Lock-In". Through analyzing the energy consumption, carbon emissions, energy structure and energy consumption per unit of GDP,we think that firstly,the main source of "Carbon Lock-In" contains technological lock-in,organizational lock-in,industrial lock-in,institutional and social lock-in;secondly,the practical reasons of "Carbon Lock-In" consist of heavy reliance on coal energy structure,the primary stage of socialism basic national conditions,the backward consumption concept,the pursuit of GDP and the status of international division of labor.Second,the reasons for the formation of "Carbon Lock-In" dilemma and the solutions of "Carbon Unlocking". From the perspective of technology and institution interpretation, this paper believes that the formation of "Carbon Lock-In" goes through three major evolutionary phases:technical path dependence,intervention of institution and evolvement of technology and institution. Through analyzing the evolution of the technology,we think that the key to break the "Carbon Lock-In" dilemma is to develop low-carbon economy,which makes the low-carbon technology system replace the high-carbon technology finally. Through analyzing the game of government and non-government,we think that the current actions of government and non-government do not meet the game equilibrium. Government should strengthen the system construction of low-carbon, low-carbon culture and government performance examination.Finally,the basic framework of the governance system of "Carbon Lock-In". Although technological innovation is the key to break the "Carbon Lock-In" and institution innovation is the foundation to break the "Carbon Lock-In",we must establish a basic framework of the governance system to thoroughly crack the "Carbon Lock-In" dilemma and achieve lowcarbon growth. Unfortunately,no one has presented a complete set of the framework. Learning from foreign experience,this paper will try to establish the basic framework of the governance system,which includes evaluation index system,economic policy system and security system. Despite its lack of empirical study and quantitative analysis,but it is of great theoretical and practical significance.