The least-cost abatement measure of carbon emissions for China's glass manufacturing industry based on the marginal abatement costs

We estimate the marginal abatement cost (MAC) curve of carbon emissions for China's glass production firms through combining the top-down economic method and the bottom-up engineering method. An economic model based on parametric directional distance function is first used to estimate the least MAC, and then, from the perspective of the engineering method, the emission abatement level is further incorporated to identify the MAC curve of carbon emissions. In addition, this study takes multiple abatement measures into account by either downscaling the production activity or enlarging the inputs use. The results show that: (i) The average MAC of carbon emissions for China's glass production firms ranges from 552 to 6571 CNY/t CO₂ operating in 2008–2015. (ii) The firms with higher main business income are usually associated with lower MAC of carbon emissions. (iii) Increasing the intermediate input is considered as the least-cost abatement measure for the large and medium sized firms, while downscaling the production activity is the optimal one for small sized firms. (iv) The regional carbon emission permit trading scheme would help China's glass manufacturing industry save 42–62% abatement costs for achieving the emission reduction targets of 5–30%, while nationwide scheme would help save additional 8% abatement costs.