Construction and quantitative analysis of the policy base of energy conservation and emissions reduction in Hubei Province

With the global climate change intensified and environmental constraints highlighted, China attach great significance to energy conservation and emissions reduction, which has become one of China’s basic national policies. Quantitating the analysis of the effectiveness of energy conservation and emissions reduction policies and differing the synergy in those measures are vital to understand the interest game behind the policies as well as the formulation principle of them. In this paper, we have collected energy conservation and emissions reduction policies between 2012 and 2016 from the public information platform of Hubei provincial government. Through intensive reading, screening and sorting, we have constructed a preliminary energy conservation and emissions reduction policies base. And from three dimensions: policy dynamics, policy measures and policy targets, we have designed a quantitative evaluation model of policy effectiveness and policy synergy of energy conservation and emissions reduction, then empirically analysed the synergistic evolution law of energy conservation and emissions reduction policies in Hubei province. Results have shown that from 2012 to 2016, the number of energy conservation and emissions reduction policies in Hubei province showed an upward trend, but the overall and average policy effectiveness was on the decline; the synergy between policy measures and policy targets has been gradually reduced to a stable range since 2012. Those mean that Hubei province puts a high value on energy conservation and emissions reduction, but there are conflicts between different policies and measures, which make it difficult to achieve the desired policy goals. Meanwhile, we have found that the effectiveness of energy conservation and emissions reduction policies in Hubei Province has a strong correlation with the national government's five-year plan for energy conservation and emissions reduction, which is lack of strategy and systematicness; the emphasis among diversified policies is shifted from single synergy to multiple measures. Finally, we put forward some suggestions on the policy formulation of energy conservation and emissions reduction in Hubei province.