Carbon Emission Effect Of International Climate Aid

Climate change has become one of the most serious problems facing the world,and has had a serious impact on agricultural production,forest ecosystem,human health and economic growth.Human activities are one of the main causes of climate change,human beings cannot be immune from this problem when facing the global climate change.Therefore,it is urgent for human beings to fight against climate change through comprehensive cooperation.In the process of coping with global climate change,international climate aid is regarded as one of the important policy tools of global climate governance,so as to help recipient countries to mitigate and adapt to climate change.Based on the above realistic background,this dissertation focuses on the carbon emission effect of climate aid and puts forward the core question to be studied,that is,whether climate aid can promote the carbon reduction of recipient countries.On the basis of clarifying the concept and relevant theories of climate aid,firstly,this dissertation gives a comprehensive summary of the development history and current situation of climate aid.Secondly,this dissertation makes a theoretical analysis of the carbon emission effect of climate aid under the framework of the general equilibrium model.Thirdly,an empirical analysis about the carbon emissions effect and its heterogeneity of climate aid has been done.Fourthly,the mediation effect model is used to investigate the dual carbon reduction mechanism of climate aid.Finally,this dissertation discusses the carbon reduction practices of climate aid through the case study of Global Environment Facility(GEF)aid to China,which would provide beneficial enlightenment for the better use of climate aid and China's participation in global climate governance.The specific research content of this dissertation mainly includes the following eight parts.The first part is the introduction,this part mainly explains relevant research background,theoretical and practical significance,research contents and methods,and possible innovations.The second part is the concept definition and literature review,including clearly defining the concept of climate aid,reviewing the classical theories of foreign aid,sorting out the research process of the environmental effects of foreign aid and clarifying the different factors affecting the carbon emissions of a country or region.The third part is the development process and present situation of international climate aid,mainly analyzes the overall trend,regional and sectoral distribution characteristics and key implementation areas of climate aid from the two aspects of mitigation and adaptation.The fourth part is the theoretical analysis of the carbon emission effect of international climate aid.By constructing a general equilibrium model that takes into account climate aid,production optimization and optimal carbon emission constraints,it investigates how the carbon emission level of recipient countries changes with the change of climate aid.The fifth part is the empirical analysis about the impact of international climate aid on the carbon emissions of recipient countries.It is mainly based on the national panel data of 77 recipient countries from 1980 to 2014 to empirically analyze the impact of climate aid on the carbon emissions of recipient countries,and investigate the heterogeneity of the carbon emission effect of climate aid.The sixth part is the mechanism analysis of international climate aid to exert carbon reduction effect,it proposes the internal mechanism that climate aid has dual carbon reduction effect,and then conducts empirical test on the direct carbon reduction effect and indirect carbon reduction effect of climate aid with the help of the mediation effect model.The seventh part takes GEF as an example to analyze the carbon emission effect of climate aid to China.Finally,the eighth part summarizes the main conclusions of each chapter,puts forward relevant policy enlightenment,and looks forward to the future research according to the deficiencies of this dissertationThrough the above studies,the main conclusions of this dissertation are as follows:First,climate aid mainly involves mitigation and adaptation two aspects,and there are similarities and differences in overall aid trends,distribution characteristics and main implementation areas of the above aspects of climate aid.(1)In terms of the overall aid trend,the scale of mitigation and adaptation climate aid both show an increasing trend year by year,and both mainly flow to Africa,Asia and the Americas,as well as mainly flow to low,middle income and least developed countries.(2)In the major areas of implementation,mitigation climate aid is distributed mainly in energy,transportation,construction,industrial and other six sectors,which through the promotion of CCS,BECCS and other low-carbon technologies,as well as solar energy,biological energy and other renewable energy technologies,so as to increase the energy efficiency of the recipient countries,improve energy structure and promote sustainable forest management,etc.Adaptation climate aid is mainly distributed in the fields of water resources,coastal zones,agriculture and forestry,which can improve the capacity of recipient countries to cope with actual or expected climate change by implementing relevant rehabilitation measures and establishing natural disaster early warning systems.(3)In addition,the financial sources and channels of climate aid are developing from public to private,single to diversified,and facing major challenges such as promoting the implementation of medium and long-term financial plans of developed countries.Secondly,from comparative static analysis based on general equilibrium model,climate aid has a reduction effect on the carbon emissions of recipient countries,it is shows that:(1)Through the comparative static analysis of the equilibrium results without and with climate aid,compared with countries without climate aid,countries with aid in an open economy have lower carbon emission levels.That is,climate aid helps recipient countries to reduce carbon emissions.(2)Countries with climate aid,whether in closed economy or open economy,the carbon emission level of recipient countries decreases with the increase of climate aid.(3)The carbon reduction effect of climate aid will also weaken with the increase of the wage level and increase with the improvement of environmental technology level of recipient countries.Thirdly,the empirical analysis of 77 recipient countries shows that:(1)The increase of climate aid significantly reduces the carbon intensity and per capita carbon emissions of recipient countries,that is,climate aid has a significant carbon reduction effect in recipient countries.(2)Under different carbon emission levels,according to the panel quantile regression estimation results,the heterogeneity of carbon emission effect of climate aid is as follows: within a certain range,climate aid has produced the expected emission reduction effect,which will gradually increase as the sub-point moves from low to high.(3)Under different income levels,the heterogeneity of carbon emission effect of climate aid is as follows: climate aid had a significant carbon reduction effect in both middle-income and low-income countries,but not in high-income countries.The conclusion that climate aid has carbon reduction effect obtained from the above empirical analysis is the empirical verification of the theoretical analysis conclusion.(4)In terms of other control variables,the relationship between income level and carbon emission is consistent with the EKC hypothesis.The increase of trade openness and capital-labor ratio significantly aggravates the carbon emission of recipient countries,and the impact of urbanization level on the carbon intensity and per capita carbon emission level of recipient countries is different.Fourthly,climate aid has a direct and indirect carbon reduction effect in recipient countries,and this above mechanism can be supported by the experience of the development status of climate aid.To be specific,(1)Climate aid can directly reduce the carbon emission by means of monitoring the emission reduction of micro-projects and increasing the carbon reduction resources in recipient countries;It can also optimize the energy structure through clean technologies and improve energy efficiency through gray technologies,thus indirectly reducing carbon emissions in recipient countries.(2)According to the results of the mediation effect test and its robustness test,the direct carbon reduction effect exists and is significant,and the energy structure plays a significant intermediary role in the process of the carbon reduction effect of climate aid,that is,the indirect carbon reduction effect is verified.Moreover,energy efficiency does not play a mediating role in the carbon reduction effect of climate aid.(3)The reasons why energy structure can play an intermediary role are related to the rapid growth of clean energy investment in developing countries,while the reasons why energy efficiency does not play an intermediary role are related to energy consumption,technology level and high incremental costs in recipient countries.Fifthly,GEF's climate aid to China can play an important role in reducing carbon emissions.From the implementation effect of the 32 finished GEF aid projects to China,it can be seen that almost every project has a carbon reduction effect.Among them,the aid projects related to the power,heat production and supply sector have a prominent carbon reduction effect,and this sector is also the most widely distributed sector of these aid projects.Further,case studies of three typical climate aid projects again reflect the above carbon reduction effect.The renewable energy development project,the China energy efficiency promotion project and the TNA project will help China achieve carbon reduction by promoting the optimization of energy structure,improving energy efficiency and improving related technologies to cope with climate change.Based on the above conclusions,this dissertation proposes specific policy implications for the better use of climate aid and China's participation in global climate governance from the global and Chinese perspectives.The implications for the world include urging developed countries to honor their commitments,encouraging climate aid to flow to countries and regions with greater carbon reduction potential and building low-carbon energy systems in recipient countries.The enlightenment for China comes from the perspectives of recipient country and donor country,including further absorbing climate aid from bilateral and multilateral institutions,using multi-channel funds to help other developing countries cope with climate change and strengthening the transformation of climate change technology from absorption to export.Compared with the existing research,the possible innovation of this dissertation is reflected in the following three aspects.Firstly,climate aid is considered in the general equilibrium model,and the carbon emission effect of climate aid is investigated by using the comparative static analysis method.Secondly,taking bilateral mitigation climate aid as the proxy variable of climate aid,this dissertation not only empirically verifies the carbon reduction effect of climate aid,but also reveals the heterogeneity of carbon emission effect at different carbon emission levels and income levels.Thirdly,with the help of the mediation effect model,this dissertation empirically verified the dual carbon reduction mechanism of climate aid,and found that in the process of climate aid playing the role of carbon reduction,the energy structure played a significant mediating role,while the energy efficiency did not play a significant mediating role.