Environment and climate change is one of the most important issues facing the world today. In the 21st century, global warming, and consequent sea level rise, as well as the imbalance of ecosystem stability, have become one of the most urgent global issues. Scholars have called for further studies on the energy transition and carbon neutrality target to avoid the huge threat to the reproduction and survival of human beings in the future.

For the purpose of comparing the concrete effects of climate change actions in different periods and different countries and evaluating the long-term pathway to carbon neutrality with the minimum cost in China, the framework of the policy cycle is applied to analyze how the energy transition policy will work, and a qualitative and quantitative mixed app...[ Read more ]

Environment and climate change is one of the most important issues facing the world today. In the 21st century, global warming, and consequent sea level rise, as well as the imbalance of ecosystem stability, have become one of the most urgent global issues. Scholars have called for further studies on the energy transition and carbon neutrality target to avoid the huge threat to the reproduction and survival of human beings in the future.

For the purpose of comparing the concrete effects of climate change actions in different periods and different countries and evaluating the long-term pathway to carbon neutrality with the minimum cost in China, the framework of the policy cycle is applied to analyze how the energy transition policy will work, and a qualitative and quantitative mixed approach was employed to conduct this study combining extensive literature collection and review, with participant observations and in-depth interviews in the field.

Firstly, this study seeks to find out the most appropriate definition of current energy transition and then identify a new indicator DCI to measure the progress of energy transition. By testing DCI with other indicators such as the energy-based carbon intensity and carbon emissions per capita, the project will prove that the DCI contains information about the climate footprint of carbon – the only source of CO2 emissions from energy use– in the energy carriers, which could help policy-makers keep track of their country’s decarbonization progress, the DCI also helps to review the evolution of the modern energy system. Secondly, this study aims to find the most likely pathway of China’s energy transition towards carbon neutrality with minimum cost and the energy consumption, carbon emissions (or sink) from different sources, and total investment to give a brief roadmap about how China could achieve the energy tansition target. Fiannly, this study enriches the principle of IO-Table model, and combines it with employment statistics to get the change of input-output on employment. We find that (1) To be carbon neutrality, the average DCI level of 15 countries and regions whose total carbon emissions exceed 0.5% of the world's total needs to be around 0.9. (2) China's energy transition is a long-term and arduous undertaking. From the discussion of financial, technology and political feasibility and the calculation of employment transition caused by emissions peak and carbon neutrality in China, we could find that the investment required for China's energy transition is only about 2% of China’s GDP per year, which will not cause much economic pressure, but disruptive technological development is still needed to support the progress of energy transition. (3) Most provinces and departments will face social risks such as employment losses and the closure of fossil energy enterprises. How to solve these social risks so that the just transition can be run in China will become the core issue for the Chinese government to solve in the next 40 years.