Integrated weighting approach to carbon emission quotas: an application case of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region

Abstract The coordinated development of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region has been included in the Chinese ‘12th Five Year Plan’ as a national strategy. Accordingly, the cooperation of energy saving and environmental protection is an important part. At the present stage, establishing carbon emission trading market in China is regarded as an effective measure to reduce and control carbon dioxide emission. Meanwhile, it is an important task for government to allocate carbon emission quotas among regions. In order to explore the cross-provincial carbon trading market mode of China, this paper aims to construct a comprehensive index and use the integrated weighting approach to simulate the carbon quota allocation of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. The results show that, firstly, the indicator of responsibility, which is about 0.56, is given relatively more weight among the three indicators. By comparison, the weights of capacity and potential are 0.13 and 0.30. Secondly, the provinces with strong economic ability and lower carbon reduction potential may get fewer proportions of carbon emission quotas, such as Beijing. Thirdly, since undertaking the function transfer and dispersal of Beijing and Tianjin, Hebei should have a relatively high carbon emission quotas in the future carbon trading market. These results may provide insightful support for decision makers to promote collaborative carbon reduction and allocate carbon quotas in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region of China.