Energy policies for managing China's carbon emission

The well-documented close relationship between economic growth and energy use indicates that the emergence of a country as an economic power cannot occur without increased in energy use. But just as the scale of China's rise as an economic power has no clear parallel in history, its conflict between economic growth and energy use has also shattered all precedents. This planet's future energy scenario hinges on the ability of this decoupling. The question this Policy Forum addressed is how to find the optimum way to accomplish this decoupling through government directive (government-centered command and control approaches, or CAC) or market forces (market-based instruments, or MBI). It concludes that market, rather than government can decide the optimum way to decouple China's economic growth from energy use. Facilitating this decoupling driven by market force requires getting the prices right for energy.