This paper reviews existing policies for supporting the treatment of electric vehicle (EV) battery waste in China, and identifies some of their major shortcomings that policy makers may like to consider while making policy decisions. The shortcomings of existing policies identified in this paper include: 1) no clear provisions for historical and orphan batteries; 2) no target for battery collection; 3) unclear definition of the scope of authority among various central and local agencies involved in the regulation of waste battery treatment; 4) unclear requirements for data auditing and verification for tracking the entire life cycle of EV batteries; 5) limited consideration of the challenges to ensure stakeholder cooperation; and 6) no explicit specification of the mechanisms for financing waste battery treatment. This paper also makes some practical policy suggestions for overcoming these shortcomings.

Prompted by the urgency of climate change, this paper analyses the impediments for coal phase-out, by using the Greater Bay Region in China as a case study. Rather than factors specific to coal production, transport and consumption (e.g., subsidies, and vested interests), as suggested by existing literature, the analysis of this paper demonstrates that coal phase-out in the region has encountered a range of market (e.g., high gas price), infrastructure (such as, inadequate network), and regulatory (e.g., prolonged project approval) impediments; these impediments have hindered the effective deployment of alternative energy sources, raising concern about coal phase-out and its crippling impacts on the security of energy supply.Redressing these impediments is therefore a key priority for promoting a smooth coal phaseout in the region. This requires a mix of policies addressing two dimensions: 1) those aimed at squeezing out coal from the energy-mix to create room for alternative low-carbon energy sources; and 2) those aimed at supporting the uptake of these sources. Implementing these policies is however a challenging task as it relies on close-centre-local, and inter-and intraregional cooperation, especially in a resource-poor region with a disperse energy endowment.Achieving this is difficult because the energy policy process of the country has long been characterised by fragmented authority and territorial administrative divisions with a proclivity for local governments to work in isolation from each other.

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Prompted by rising concern about weak consumer switching and the practice of price discrimination, over the period of 2016–2019, the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) undertook a series of trials on communication-based interventions to encourage consumer switching in the United Kingdom. The main purpose of this paper is to assess the experience of these Ofgem trials with a view to draw some lessons for policy makers. The analytical framework adopted for this purpose is informed by existing literature on the barriers for consumer switching. The results of the analysis suggest that while the Ofgem trials have made positive impacts on consumer switching, these impacts varied significantly across the trials, suggesting that some interventions were more effective than others. Further, the overall impacts of the Ofgem trials were moderate, as around 70% of participants did not switch suppliers even in the most impactful trial. This reflects a general lack of understanding in the literature about the behaviour-influencing factors, their impacts, and their context-connects. By implication, the difficulty in stimulating consumer switching, as demonstrated by the Ofgem trials, suggests that weak consumer switching and the practice of price discrimination may simply reflect significant competition, rather than a lack of it, especially if retail margins are not greater than the competitive level. In this case, the communication-based intervention aimed at encouraging consumer switching may lead to further price discrimination, especially for the most vulnerable consumers, who are more likely to stay with their incumbent suppliers.