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Effects of the US withdrawal from Paris Agreement on the carbon emission space and cost of China and India

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Abstract

Climate mitigation has become a global issue and most countries have promised their greenhouse gas reduction target. However, after Trump took office as president of the United States (US), the US withdrew from the Paris Agreement. As the biggest economy, this would have impacts on the emission space of other countries. This paper, by using the integrated model of energy, environment and economy/computable general equilibrium (IMED/CGE) model, assesses the impacts of the US withdrawal from Paris Agreement on China, India in terms of carbon emission space and mitigation cost under Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and 2°C scenarios due to changed emission pathway of the US. The results show that, under the condition of constant global cumulative carbon emissions and fixed burden sharing scheme among the countries, the failure of the US to honor its NDC commitment will increase its carbon emission space and decrease its mitigation cost. However, the carbon emission space of other regions, including China and India, will be reduced and their mitigation costs will be raised. In 2030, under the 2°C target, the carbon price will increase by US$14.3 to US$45.3/t in China and by US $10.7 to US$33.9/t in India. In addition, China and India will incur additional GDP loss. Under the 2°C target, the GDP loss of China would increase by US$23.3 to US$72.6 billion (equivalent to US$17.4 to US$54.2/capita), and that of India would rise by US$14.2 to US$43.1 billion (equivalent to US$9.3 to US$28.2/capita).

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 71704005), “The Impacts of the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on Global Climate Governance and China’s Response” (Grant No. 71741011) of the 2017 National Natural Science Foundation Project, and the special fund of State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control (Grant No. 18K01ESPCP).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Hancheng Dai

  2. School of Economics and Management, Beihang University, Beijing, 100191, China

    Yang Xie

  3. School of International Studies, Peking University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Haibin Zhang

  4. School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Zhongjue Yu

  5. The Administrative Center for China’s Agenda 21, Ministry of Science and Technology, Beijing, 100038, China

    Wentao Wang

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  1. Hancheng Dai
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Correspondence to Yang Xie.

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Dai, H., Xie, Y., Zhang, H. et al. Effects of the US withdrawal from Paris Agreement on the carbon emission space and cost of China and India. Front. Energy 12, 362–375 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11708-018-0574-y

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