Authors:
Wei Yang
and
Weixin Luan
Affiliation:
School of Maritime economics and management, Dalian Maritime University and Dalian, China
Keyword(s):
Ocean energy policy, local government, policy tools, content analysis
Abstract:
Ocean energy is an important marine resource, the development and utilization of ocean energy can be one of the important ways to improve and optimize energy structure and reduce environmental pollution. Currently, the technology of ocean energy is immature and costly, and does not have large-scale commercial application. In this situation, this technology needs to be supported by strong policies. The policies of local governments in China are individual and operable, which can provide necessary cooperation and supplement to the policy of the central government. Based on the classification standard of policy tools, the study adopts the content quantitative analysis method to analyse the 242 policies issued by 11 coastal provinces and cities of China between 2005 and 2015. The study is based on three dimensions which are the policy number, issued form and policy content. The research shows that: (1) During 2005 and 2015, regions with relatively developed marine economy, such as Shando
n, Guangdong and Zhejiang province, issued the largest number of policies, showing a positively relationship between the attention to ocean energy policy and the level of marine economy development; (2) The policy format increasingly diversified, especially from 2011 to 2015, the local government enacted a large number of practical and operational policies, ocean energy policies changed from a form of "opinion" to "planning"; (3) The unbalanced policy tools structure, the overflowed environmental policy tools and the insufficiently utilized demand type policy tools are the reasons why incentive mechanism of the ocean energy market has not yet been formed.
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