Abstract
Guangdong, as China’s most affluent province, which is representative in terms of its industrial and energy consumption structure, will deal with an important issue about how to change its environmental management policies from command-and-control strategies to incentive-based ones and how to exert its effects to the greatest extent possible in the new situation of the impending imposition of an environmental tax. By establishing an energy Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model for Guangdong Province, and setting up various taxation and tax refund scenarios, this research simulates the energy saving and emission reduction effects imposed by the imposition of an energy tax or carbon tax at various tax rates in Guangdong Province, and analyzes the mitigation effects upon an economic system by various tax refund plans. The research proves that when the energy tax rate is at 100–200 yuan/tce (ton coal equivalent) or carbon tax at 50–100 yuan/t CO2, the energy consumption of Guangdong Province is reduced by 5.8–11.21%, and carbon emission is reduced by 5.94–11.61%. The energy saving and emission reduction effects of the carbon tax surpasses that of the energy tax under the equivalent tax revenue with even fewer significant negative impacts upon the economy, contributing to the capital transfer towards non-energy intensive industries; thus, appropriate and accurate tax refund plans can alleviate the negative impacts of taxation upon the economy in Guangdong Province.
Highlights
It has been 20 years since the implementation of top-down environmental protection management policies, of which a core policy was controlling the total amount of pollutants
Guangdong Province is confronted with the highest target for energy savings and emission reduction
Under the new situation of environmental protection tax collection, it is of great necessity for Guangdong Province to deeply explore the influences on the economy and the effects upon energy saving and emission reduction target imposed by taxation of energy tax or carbon tax, especially in terms of the methods of taxation, tax levels, and compensations
Summary
It has been 20 years since the implementation of top-down environmental protection management policies, of which a core policy was controlling the total amount of pollutants. The simulation analysis conducted by Yang et al [18] revealed that the taxation of energy tax can exert trivial influence on the growth of national economic aggregate, while energy tax policies can be beneficial to the reduction of energy demand, energy intensity, and the share of coal in energy synthetics, improving the energy mix and promoting the industrial structure adjustment, and can facilitate the reduction of CO2 and SO2 emission, enhancing the environmental quality He et al [19] held the idea that the simple implementation of an energy tax and environmental protection tax for the realization of pollution reduction targets would bring negative impacts upon the macro-economy, and the taxation on pollutants would exert fewer negative influences on economic activities than that on energy consumption. By establishing the energy CGE model for Guangdong Province, this thesis analyzes the effects of the taxation of an energy tax (carbon tax) on energy savings and emission reduction, the macro influences on the national economy of the whole province, the impacts of different tax rate policies, and the effects of compensations by quantitative comparison, attempting to provide references for government decision-making
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