The Research On The Low-carbon Accountability System Of Local Government

In recent years, the environmental problems, such as the global warming effectthat caused by carbon dioxide emission, the deteriorating ecological environment, aswell as scarce energy resources, come along with the recognized success of China ineconomic development. Given the leading position of government in socialmanagement, it is responsible for government to advocate low carbon economy.Further study is needed for theorists and practical workers in order to put low carbonpolicy into practice and to reach the goal of sustainable development.Domestic scholars and those from overseas have researched low carboneconomic problems, and realized the essential role of government in economicdevelopment. At the same time, the lack of responsibility of government in this areawas also confirmed. The main reason is that there is no practical way for governmentto carry out the policy. Considering the current situations of Chinese low carboneconomic development and how Chinese government carry out their words, this studyemployed the combination of theoretical research and empirical study. Based on theresponsible government theory, low carbon economic theory, transaction fee theory,public goods theory as well as negative externality theory, this paper took localgovernment as research subjects and defined the duty of local government in lowcarbon development. From different aspects, such as the inner economicresponsibility and low carbon responsibility of local governments; the debtrelationship between local government and central government; the responsibilityrelationship among local governments; the responsibility relationship between localgovernment and other societal subjects, this paper concluded the obscureresponsibility of local government in low carbon responsibility, the conflicts inresponsibility as well as the causes and questions of problems. By introducing theexperience in applying low carbon policy from United States, United Kingdom,Denmark and Japan, this paper provided comprehensive suggestions to solve theproblems of local government， including perfecting the legal system of localgovernments’ low-carbon responsibility, reforming the performance evaluation indexsystem with the achievement view of low-carbon,practicing the low-carbontarget-oriented responsibility system of local government, reinforcing the incentiveeconomic policy of the low-carbon development,building the low-carbon intergovernmental governance mechanism, as well as strengthening the supervisionmechanism of local governments’ low-carbon responsibility. Hope the design ofresponsibility policy of low-carbon will assure the local government will carry outtheir responsibility at the same time of development economy, to fulfill thesustainable development of economy and environment.