Marginal abatement cost of agricultural carbon emissions in China: 1993-2015
China Agricultural Economic Review
ISSN: 1756-137X
Article publication date: 27 July 2018
Issue publication date: 17 October 2018
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to estimate shadow prices of agricultural carbon emissions produced by agricultural inputs, rice paddy and burning crop residue, and to explore the impact of cropping pattern on marginal abatement cost (MAC).
Design/methodology/approach
The shadow price of agricultural carbon emissions is estimated by applying directional distance function and non-parametric methods.
Findings
The estimated shadow price of agricultural carbon emissions ranges from 6.78 to 557.83 yuan/ton, and the average value is 62.50 yuan/ton (or $10.18/ton). The MAC value varies in different provinces and years. The regional difference of MAC shows a decreasing trend during the investigation period. Cropping pattern shows a significant negative impact on agricultural MAC. A 1 percent decrease of rice proportion leads to a 0.31 percent increase in MAC value. This implies that the higher the proportion of rice is, the lower the economic cost to reduce agricultural carbon emissions would be.
Practical implications
It is feasible to draw up appropriate mechanisms for the allocation of emission reduction responsibilities according to conditions in various regions, with emphasis on the local cropping patterns. There is a trade-off between reducing carbon emission and increasing crop yields.
Originality/value
This study calculates agricultural MAC by using the shadow price approach, taking agricultural carbon emissions as undesired environmental output. The study also provides a reference emission right price and provides guidance to make use of cropping structure adjustment and optimization for exploring the emission reduction strategy.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Program Nos 71333006 and 41371520) and Key Project of Philosophy and Social Science Research of Ministry of Education (Program No. 15JZD014).
Citation
Wu, X., Zhang, J. and You, L. (2018), "Marginal abatement cost of agricultural carbon emissions in China: 1993-2015", China Agricultural Economic Review, Vol. 10 No. 4, pp. 558-571. https://doi.org/10.1108/CAER-04-2017-0063
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited