Disaggregation of energy-saving targets for China's provinces: modeling results and real choices

Starting with the 11th Five-Year Plan (FYP) and continuing in the 12th FYP, quantitative and binding targets have been set for energy-efficiency improvement in China. Drawing on international experience in burden-sharing on climate change, this paper presents a framework for provincial-level disaggregation of energy-saving targets in China. Based on principles of equity and efficiency, four scenarios have been established by weighting different choice preferences of responsibility, capacity, and potential. In addition, nonlinear and linear allocation models have been developed by considering or ignoring marginal energy-saving cost. When this framework was applied to the disaggregation of the national energy saving target of 16% during the 12th FYP, the results show that the final allocation schemes are largely determined by the policy maker's choice preferences. The extreme reduction target of 37.26% fell to Shanghai under responsibility preferring (RP) using the linear allocation method, while the capability preferring (CP) scenario considering marginal energy-saving cost is the closest to the actual scheme accepted by the 30 provinces. Development of such a framework may serve as a feasible policy instrument to help China achieve its conservation targets in a cost-effective way and in accordance with its regional development strategies.