The evolution of China's new energy policy (1995-2021): an analysis based on policy tools

Greenhouse gas emissions lead to global warming, which has been widely concerned by the international community. Further strengthening energy conservation and emission reduction is an urgent need to deal with global climate change. As a responsible big country, China has been formulating strong policies and measures to achieve the goal of energy conservation and emission reduction. Taking the evolution process of China's new energy policy as an example, based on the policy tool theory and using the content analysis method, this paper studies the structural evolution of China's new energy policy from 1995 to 2021. The results show that: (1) With the passage of time, the frequency and intensity of policy combination from the central government to local governments gradually increase; (2)In the use of new energy policy tools, Central government departments and local government departments mainly use mandatory command and control tools, supplemented by economic incentives and social autonomy tools (3) According to the different tasks of energy conservation and emission reduction, the eastern coastal provinces tend to use more applicable and flexible economic incentives, while the central and western provinces tend to use command and control tools. Based on the change trend of China's new energy policy from 1995 to 2021, this study predicts that in the next 10 years, the mandatory tools will be the first policy tools to be used, and the mixed tools and voluntary tools will be appropriately added to promote China's goal of carbon peak and carbon neutralization.