NBER Publications by Huifang Tian

Large population / rapidly growing economies such as China and India have argued that in the upcoming UNFCCC negotiations in Copenhagen, any emission reduction targets they take on should be based on their intensity of emissions (emissions/$GDP) on a target date not the level of emissions. They argue that this will allow room for their continued high growth, and level commitments in the presence of sharply differential growth between OECD and non-OECD economies represent asymmetric and unacceptable arrangements. Much of the policy literature agrees with this position, also arguing that while there is equivalence between commitments if growth rates are certain, where growth rates are uncertain equivalence breaks down. However, no explicit models or experimental design are used to support th...

In the paper we discuss China's participation in both the 2009 Copenhagen negotiations on a post-Kyoto global climate change regime currently under way and out beyond Copenhagen in further negotiations likely to follow. China is now both the largest and most rapidly growing carbon emitter, and has much higher emission intensity relative to GDP than OECD countries. In the Copenhagen negotiation, there will be strong pressure on China to take on emissions reduction commitments and China's concern will be to do so in ways that allow continuation of a high growth rate and fast development. Central to this will be maintaining access to OECD markets for manufactured exports in face of potential environmental protectionism. Thus the broad approach seems likely to be to take on environmental commi...