China's Energy Security Strategy and the Regional Environment

Since 1980, China s economy quintupled. This
growth brought about considerable welfare
gains for the population. However, this also
lead to challenges for China s energy
security (e.g. increasing oil-imports)
and severe regional environmental problems (e.g. SO2-
emissions and acid rain). Thus, the environment is
gaining an increasing role on the political agenda
and environmental considerations are likely to play
a much more important role in China s future energy
security policy. Until 2020, GDP and energy
consumption will further increase. Taking this into
account, future Chinese energy security strategy
constitutes an inter-temporal welfare optimisation
problem under domestic resources availability and
environmental constraints. In this study, a dynamic
inter-temporal optimisation model of energy
resources consumption and SO2-emissions is build up
and taken as a yardstick for the efficiency of
different energy security policy measures. As a
result, optimal control theory gives a normative
answer to the question how the utilisation of the
fossil resources and the environment has to be
chosen to maximise inter-temporal welfare in China.

Autorentext
Andreas Oberheitmann, Ph.D. is Director of the Research Center for International Environmental Policy (RCIEP) and Visting Professor to the Department for Environmental Science and Engineering at Tsinghua University in Beijing. His research results were published in well-established and peer-reviewed journals, partly in Chinese language.

Klappentext
Since 1980, China's economy quintupled. This growth brought about considerable welfare gains for the population. However, this also lead to challenges for China's energy security (e.g. increasing oil-imports) and severe regional environmental problems (e.g. SO2- emissions and acid rain). Thus, the environment is gaining an increasing role on the political agenda and environmental considerations are likely to play a much more important role in China's future energy security policy. Until 2020, GDP and energy consumption will further increase. Taking this into account, future Chinese energy security strategy constitutes an inter-temporal welfare optimisation problem under domestic resources availability and environmental constraints. In this study, a dynamic inter-temporal optimisation model of energy resources consumption and SO2-emissions is build up and taken as a yardstick for the efficiency of different energy security policy measures. As a result, optimal control theory gives a normative answer to the question how the utilisation of the fossil resources and the environment has to be chosen to maximise inter-temporal welfare in China.