Synergizing China's energy and carbon mitigation goals: General equilibrium modeling and policy assessment

In this work, we enrich the technical details of the energy sector by extending the conventional framework of computable general equilibrium (CGE) modeling, and we take into account uncertainty regarding fossil-fueled technologies and endogenous nonfossil energy technological change, which provides uswith formidable benefits to explore the policy synergy of China's multiple energy development and carbon control targets. We find that carbon pricing policy plays a consistently negative role in economic growth, while the economic impacts of nonfossil investment incentives differ in their policy stringency. Compared to energy intensity reduction goals that could be easily attained given the baseline effort, achieving carbon peaking targets may be relatively difficult without additional policy intervention, and the policy efforts required to reach energy consumption control targets in 2030 and nonfossil energy development targets in 2050 are even stricter. This research also identifies significant policy effect differences in carbon pricing and nonfossil investment incentives. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.