There is a growing body of literature mentioning the slow pace of energy technological progress as compared to other technologies like information technology (IT), but the reasons why energy sector is perplexed by slow innovation remain unexplained. Based on a variety-expanding endogenous...

There has been extensive analysis of the drivers of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion and cement production, which constituted only 55% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 1970 and 65% in 2010. But there has been much less analysis of the drivers of greenhouse gases in...

The Chinese central government has approved the seven pilot carbon trading schemes. These seven pilot regions are deliberately selected to be at varying stages of development and are given considerable leeway to design their own schemes. These pilot trading schemes have features in common, but...

Mobilizing climate finance for developing countries is crucial for achieving a fair and effective global climate regime. To date developed countries retain wide discretion over their national contributions. We explore how different degrees of international coordination may influence the fairness...

China needs to reduce its carbon emissions if global climate change mitigation is to succeed. Conventional economic analysis views cutting emissions as a cost, creating a collective action problem. However, decarbonization can improve productivity and provide co-benefits that accord with...

We examine the key factors driving change in energy use globally over the past four decades. Our econometric approach is robust to the presence of unit roots, unobserved time effects, and spatial effects. We test for both strong decoupling where economic growth has less effect on energy use as...

We summarize what we know about energy and economic growth in a set of stylized facts. We combine analysis of a panel data set of 99 countries from 1971 to 2010 with analysis of some longer run historical data. Our key result is that over the last 40 years there has been a stable cross-sectional...

The Chinese leadership in November 2013 determined to embark upon a new wave of comprehensive reforms in China. This is clearly reflected by the key decision of the Third Plenum of the 18th Central Committee of Communist Party of China to assign the market a decisive role in allocating...

Whether China maintains its business-as-usual energy-intensive growth trajectory or changes to a sustainable development alternative has significant implications for global energy and climate governance. This paper is motivated to theoretically examine ChinaÕs potential transition from its...

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 ChinaÕs efforts towards energy conservation and environmental quality. The article discusses a variety of...