The impact of carbon tax policy on residents’ welfare of China and its heterogeneity under the carbon neutrality goal: A CGE model-based analysis

Abstract

Under the background that China will achieve the goal of carbon neutrality by 2060, analyzing the impact of carbon neutral target constraints on the welfare of urban and rural residents is an important part of the design of a carbon emission reduction policy mechanism, in this paper, the dynamic recursive CGE(Computable general equilibrium) model is used to simulate the changes in welfare level, income consumption, and CO2 emissions of residents and their urban-rural heterogeneity under the policy of imposing a carbon tax on the fossil energy industry from 2022 to 2060. The results show that: compared with the BAU scenario, by 2060, first the income and consumption of residents will decrease slightly. Second, the target constraint of carbon neutrality makes the equivalent variation and compensate variation of urban and rural residents' welfare decrease slightly, and the equivalent variation and compensate variation of urban residents decrease more than those of rural residents. The following conclusions are drawn: first, the carbon-neutral target constraint makes the welfare of urban and rural residents decline slightly, but it will not have a strong impact on residents’ income and consumption. Second, this constraint has a greater impact on the income, consumption and savings of urban residents than those of rural residents.