Does China’s emission trading scheme affect corporate financial performance:Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment

Taking China’s emissions trading system (ETS) pilots as a quasi-natural experiment, we examine how the ETS affects firms’ financial performance. Previous studies highlight the impact of ETS on regional and industrial development; however, few studies focus on its potential impact on firms’ performance. Using a time-varying difference-in-differences model and data on Chinese listed firms from 2008 to 2020, we find that the ETS pilots have significant positive impacts on firms’ profitability and value and a negative impact on operating costs. We also find that the ETS pilots improve total factor productivity, but the technological changes indirectly suppress the relation between the ETS and financial performance. Finally, we find evidence that state-owned enterprises experience more significant improvements in their financial performance, led by ETS participation. Our findings have policy implications for firms’ sustainable development and the transition to a low-carbon economy

Global value chains: Potential synergies between external trade policy and internal economic initiatives to address the strategic dependencies of the EU

Global value chains enable two-thirds of international trade, notably for the EU. The EU wants to preserve its commercial links with third countries and organisations to make up for trade disruptions. This study examines sustainable supply of raw materials, commodities, and critical goods using the EU's Open Strategic Autonomy concept. It examines which raw material are crucial for sustainable supply and necessary for the green transition. The paper examines EU internal legislation and international cooperation instruments to determine the EU's disruption risk. It evaluates the economic impact of EU preferential trade agreements on raw material availability. The study illustrates the political and economic relevance of raw material partnerships and plurilateral and bilateral trade agreements. It analyses the EU's toolbox for safeguarding its interests and making independent trade choices to counteract other actors' unfair practices and intervention. Finally, the paper examines regulatory frameworks, international alliances, and activities to find ways to strengthen global value chains in critical EU industries

Sustainability in the Age of Platforms. CEPS Special Report. June 2019

Over the past few decades, new digital platforms such as China’s Alibaba, Japan’s Rakuten and the U.S.’s eBay have grown from startups into multinational giants. With a few clicks of the keyboard, these online marketplaces bring together a seller and a buyer from anywhere in the globe. This study examines the transformative impact of online marketplaces on economic, social and environmental sustainability. It finds great opportunities. Platforms promote growth, break down barriers of distance and leap over rigid class structures, bringing marginalized outsiders into the mainstream. The study also identifies dangers stemming from the growth of e-commerce, from the reduction of labor protection to an explosion of shipping waste. What are the responsibilities of platforms? How can they promote sustainability? Policymakers are asking these questions, but struggling to find the correct balance between the opportunities against the dangers. Until now, these questions have received little attention from scholars. This study fills a much-needed void by providing some initial answers and recommendations for improvement

UK-China collaborative study on low carbon technology transfer: final report

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China’s South–South Cooperation with Latin America and the Caribbean

Since the formation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, China’s political leaders have given priority to securing the country’s sovereignty, national unification, and territorial integrity. This has involved pursuing foreign relations that contribute to an international environment that is conducive to the country’s peaceful development as a prosperous socialist society. In pursuing these strategic goals, the Chinese government and state-owned corporations seek to establish economic and political relations with the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries that are based on the principles and practices of South–South cooperation (SSC). This essay focuses on the extent to which China’s relations with these countries contribute to their mutual benefit, promote their common development, and support the formation of a new multipolar world order based on peace, mutuality, equity, environmental sustainability, and international cooperation

The Political Economy of CDM Market in China: Business Actors in the Governance of Carbon Offset

This thesis examines the role of business actors in networking, influencing and shaping the governance of China’s CDM market. By adopting a neo-pluralistic view of business power, it reveals how companies in the CDM market in China are wielding their unique capabilities and technics to affect policy making and implementing process both at the national and local level. It is based on a qualitative case study strategy to investigate and reveal the detailed context and causes for some worrying problems around CDM in China. 42 interviews, plus large number of document, and field observations have been carried out to collect data. The study also illustrated their constraints to achieve their goals and strategic preferences due to the confrontational interests among business actors. In general, it contributes insights of the reform era political economy in China’s environmental and climate governance

From Silos to Systems: Issues in Clean Energy and Climate Change

A report on the work of the REIL Network, 2008 - 201

Energy firms' responses to institutional ambiguity and complexity in long energy transitions:The case of the UK and China

We compare and contrast the UK and China as maximum variation cases for understanding long energy transitions from the state and the firm perspectives. We present case histories and corpus-based computer-assisted textual analyses on the long energy transitions in both countries. With these, we explore and explain how and why energy supply firms respond the way they do to the institutional ambiguities and complexities that characterize the long energy transitions in each case. Our findings demonstrate that a centrally coordinated and imposed approach by the state can generate institutional clarity in long energy transition, which is quickly seized on by firms striving to preserve and increase their resources and influence. Such clarity and transition processes lose momentum owing to the perennial trilemma of energy affordability, security and sustainability. Market-based mechanisms to trigger and sustain long energy transitions, complemented with focused and continuous state interventions (e.g., incentives, taxation) provide a more effective and accountable institutional framework for the state and energy firms to deal with the energy trilemma. Irrespective of the logic of the type of economy that manifests the backdrop for any long energy transition process, institutional ambiguity and complexity never disappear completely, owing to both the energy trilemma and the institutional multiplicities