About this Research Topic

Background

The Topic Editors would like to warmly welcome members of The International Society for Energy Transition Studies (ISETS) and other non-member researchers to contribute to this dedicated Research Topic.

China’s national carbon market, the world’s largest emissions trading scheme (ETS), kicked off its first online trade recently. This can be called a milestone for the country towards the nation’s goals of having CO2 emissions peak before 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060. China’s national ETS initially covers the power sector, before being expanded to a much broader set of energy-intensive industries. On one hand, the electricity sector, the largest carbon-emitting industry, is responsible for about 40% of China’s emissions, and it has great significance to response to global climate change. On the other hand, the effectiveness of China’s ETS will rest on how well it is coordinated with power market regulations and policies. In this regard, the deepening of reform, as well as the advanced technology and its applications in the electricity market will add new challenges and opportunities to electricity trade, which, in turn, influences national ETS. Therefore, this brings urgency to accurately capture the dynamic interactions between national ETS and electricity market to transform carbon trading into a practical and effective way to decarbonize the power sector.

This Research Topic aims at emerging insights from scholars and experts, which can help to perfect China’s national carbon market as well as electricity market, and thus can reduce carbon emissions. Moreover, there are a lot of latecomers like China in operating the ETS. We hopefully believe these countries or regions which tend to launch carbon market can be inspired to follow and study the Chinese example to tackle climate change. Different and innovative methodologies including both literature reviews and theoretical analysis, as well as empirical insights derived from case studies, are welcomed.

Particularly, the editors are interested in the research studies based on the application of big data, machine learning and other advanced analytical techniques. The topics include but are not confined to the following areas:
• Coupling mechanism and dynamic interaction between China’s carbon market and electricity market
• Carbon cost pass-through to electricity prices and their interactions
• Carbon price and electricity generation by power plants
• Case studies learned from mature ETS operators, like the EU and US, especially the experience and lessons in the power sector
• The economy-energy-environment impacts of national ETS
• The impact of relevant policies targeting the power sector on ETS
• The effects of ETS on advanced technology and its applications in power sector
• Nexus of carbon, energy, and finance
• Other important questions about relationship between ETS and electricity market

Keywords: carbon neutrality, emissions trading scheme, electricity market, carbon price, price transmission mechanism

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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