As an important step towards building a "harmonious society" through "scientific development", China has incorporated for the first time in its five-year economic plan an energy input indicator as a constraint. While it achieved a quadrupling of its GDP while cutting its energy intensity by...

In what format and under what timeframe China would take on climate commitments is of significant relevance to China because it is facing great pressure both inside and outside international climate negotiations to exhibit greater ambition and is being confronted with the threats of trade...

Since 1997 the Netherlands has a tax allowance scheme introduced to promote investments in energy saving technologies and sustainable energy production. This Energy Investment Tax Allowance (EIA in Dutch) reduces up-front investment costs for firms investing in the newest energy saving and...

China has gradually recognized that the conventional path of encouraging economic growth at the expense of the environment cannot be sustained. It has to be changed. This article focuses on China's efforts towards energy conservation and environmental quality. The article discusses a variety of...

To correct market failures due to the presence of negative externalities associated with energy consumption, governments have adopted a variety of policies, including taxes, subsidies, regulations and standards, and information-based policies. For example, labels that clearly convey energy...

Concerns about climate change are growing, and so is the demand for information about the costs and benefits of mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. This paper seeks to estimate the benefits of climate change mitigation, as measured by the public’s willingness to pay for such policies. We...

We evaluate incentives for residential energy upgrades in Italy using data from an original survey of Italian homeowners. In this paper, attention is restricted to heating system replacements, and to the effect of monetary and non-monetary incentives on the propensity to replace the heating...

China had been the world's second largest carbon emitter for years. However, recent studies show that China had overtaken the US as the world's largest emitter in 2007. This has put China on the spotlight, just at a time when the world community starts negotiating a post-Kyoto climate regime...

In addition to the already present Climate and Energy package, the European Union (EU) plans to include a binding target to reduce energy consumption. We analyze the rationales the EU invokes to justify such an overlapping and develop a minimal common framework to study interactions arising from...

Paragraph 31(iii) of the Doha Ministerial Declaration mandates to the liberalization of environmental goods and services. This mandate offers a good opportunity to put climate-friendly goods and services on a fast track to liberalization. Agreement on this paragraph should represent one...