ZEW Researchers on Mobility Issues in Beijing

In the ZEW session on climate change mitigation, air pollution control, and the mobility sector, environmental economists from China, Germany, and the USA presented research projects that focused on the effectiveness of different policy measures in reducing emissions at the local, regional, and international levels. Moderators for the session included Andreas Löschel, ZEW Research Associate and professor at the University of Münster, together with Bodo Sturm, ZEW Research Associate and professor at the Leipzig University of Applied Sciences (HTWK Leipzig), and Professor Ou Xunmin from Tsinghua University in Beijing. An important focus of the session was on economic issues related to emissions caused by the mobility sector.

In his opening speech, Professor Ou Xunmin presented expectations for the Chinese automotive market in the coming decades. According to Xunmin, there are expected to be about 500 million cars in 2050, 80 per cent of which will be electric. With this in mind, massive investments are currently being made in the charging infrastructure and programmes launched to promote hydrogen propulsion. Professor Qin Ping from the Beijing-based Renmin University of China emphasised, though, the importance of the transport sector in improving the environmental quality in Beijing. Her analysis showed that up to 58 per cent of air pollution in Beijing is caused by the transport sector; policies aimed at reducing heavy amounts of traffic should therefore come to the fore. The models show that this would enable a 76 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Professor Antonio Bento from the USC Center for Sustainability Solutions drew attention to the undesirable side effects of air pollution control programmes in China. According to the study, production relocation by companies – induced by short-term production bans – leads to a reduction in air pollution in the regulated phases but then afterwards to a sharp increase, especially in particularly densely populated industrial regions. What results is that, overall, more emissions are produced via having regulation than what not having appropriate regulation would have produced. Professor Bento therefore recommended policy interventions which, for example, set appropriate upper limits in order to have a greater effect on smoothing out emissions over time and long-term rather than measures which generate very high emission avoidances just for the short-term. This could be achieved, for example, by limiting the number of days of heavy air pollution per year. Rounding off the presentation, Professor Zhang Bing from Nanjing University emphasised the importance of app-based information systems for knowing more about local pollution. Based on a field study in 50 Chinese cities, Professor Bing and his co-authors found that greater transparency of pollution levels led to a stricter application of national policies by local governments.

Professor Martin Kesternich, deputy head of the ZEW Research Department “Environmental and Resource Economics, Environmental Management”, discussed in his lecture the role that anxiety plays in decision-making when purchasing electric vehicles, given their limited range. On the basis of data from daily driving performances in Germany, he showed that more than 80 per cent of current combustion engines could in principle be replaced by an electric car without having to limit the current daily driving performance. The ongoing scepticism about electric cars was also confirmed by the analyses of data from a car sharing provider. According to the study, 75 per cent of customers always chose a combustion engine even if an electric car was available for the same cost at the same rental station. In her lecture, ZEW environmental economist Carina Fugger presented experimental results on the role of voluntary CO2 offsetting in courier services for corporate clients. Of particular interest to the participants in the session was the empirical finding that although the shipping companies would be willing to pay a surcharge for their climate-neutral delivery, they tend not to want to document this fact via a label on the package.