Conclusions

Conclusions

Environmental problems created by the use of energy are world-wide problems. The solution rests on the control of emission of pollutants, the reduction of energy use per unit of output (or energy intensity), the substitution of clean energy, and the promotion of technological innovations to achieve the last two objectives.

China’s central government has paid a great deal of attention to the environment problem in its strategy for sustainable development. However the emphasis is on reducing air and water pollution rather in controlling the emission of CO₂ that can cause global warming. The problem of CO₂ emission is not felt immediately and China would rely on the developed countries to take a greater share of the burden since the latter have caused the high level of CO₂ accumulated up to this point. In China, even the control of air and water pollution requires improvement in both legislation and law enforcement.

Much work needs to be done for China to enforce existing laws for protecting the environment and to formulate a systematic set of laws and policies for environmental protection as suggested in section 5. The successful enforcement of these laws and implementation of such policies are difficult mainly because of the lack of cooperation of local government officials. Strong resolve on the part of top Communist Party leadership would be required to change the behavior of these officials by severe punishment but such resolve may not be forthcoming. A likely prospect is that environmental laws will not be strictly enforced for some time to come.

In the mean time the central government can try to protect the environment by reducing energy intensity in production and increasing the use of clean energy through the provision of economic incentives for energy saving and the reduction of the relative price of clean energy. How to design a set of incentives to achieve this in practice remains a very challenging problem for research.