Analysis of Economic Incentive Policies for Improving a Low Carbon Society—Case Study of the Building Industry in China and Japan

Abstract

In the process of promoting the development of a low carbon society, economic incentive policies play an important role. In order to see the effectiveness of implementing the economic incentive policies, we put forward two questions in this study: How effective are economic incentive policies in the building industry in China and Japan? What are the obstacles preventing these policies from being effectively applied and how to overcome them? Considering the energy consumption in the building industry accounts for a significant proportion in both China and Japan, economic incentive policies for promoting building energy saving in the two countries have been chosen as case studies. Policies discussed in this article are divided into national and city levels, in which the city level policy analysis mainly focused on the active Carbon Trading Programs. Methods of stakeholder investigation and literature review are applied in exploring the economic incentive polices' effects and constraints. Based on the outcomes of our research, policy recommendations for overcoming the barriers of economic incentive policies in the building industry are worked out.

在推动低碳社会发展的过程中，经济刺激政策发挥了重要作用。我们在研究中提出两个问题：经济刺激政策在中国和日本建筑行业中作用如何？是什么因素阻碍这些政策的有效实施，以及如何克服这些障碍？通过这两个问题，我们试图考察经济刺激政策的实施有效性。建筑行业的能源消耗在中国和日本都占有很大比重，因此选择这两国推广建筑节能的经济刺激政策作为案例，进行研究。本文讨论的政策分为国家和城市两个等级，城市政策分析主要侧重积极的碳交易计划。本文运用利益相关人调查和文献检索的方法，探索经济刺激政策的效果和制约。本文在研究结果的基础上，就建筑行业如何克服经济刺激政策障碍提出了建议。

Keywords::

• Economic incentive policy
• low carbon
• building industry

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Erratum

Acknowledgements

Advice for revisions from Mrs Yuko Nishida of the Bureau of Environment, Tokyo Metropolitan Government is highly valued. The authors are responsible for the remaining errors.

Notes

^1. Energy consumption in building industry: energy consumed in building construction, operation and demolition. In this article, energy consumption in the operation period of buildings is the main concern.

^2. Building industry: an industry that includes building construction, building operation and demolition.

^3. Low carbon city: cities that meet their targets of GHG emission reduction. In this article, ‘low carbon’ indicates reduction of CO₂ intensity.

^4. Calculated according to the exchange rate on 15 September 2013.

^5. Calculated according to the exchange rate on 15 September 2013.

^6. Calculated according to the exchange rate on 15 September 2013.

^7. Calculated according to the exchange rate on 15 September 2013.

^8. Calculated according to the exchange rate on 15 September 2013.

^9. Calculated according to the exchange rate on 15 September 2013.

Additional information

Funding

The research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant No. 71403170].