Financial Promotion for Low Carbon Project Implementation Using Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) during Highway Construction

摘要

With the growing awareness of sustainability and global climate change, the Ministry of Transport of China (MOT) is taking essential steps to reduce carbon emissions from highway infrastructure on a life cycle basis. While much is known regarding energy saving and emission reduction projects by government investment, very little is understood about how climate change projects should be invested by private finance during highway planning, delivery, and construction processes. This paper presents the current low carbon practices (LCPs) are implemented purely using public finance for addressing the financial shortage issues in highway infrastructure projects, instead of using public-private partnerships (PPPs). A set of LCPs with the function of energy saving and emission reduction commonly applied in highway construction currently encouraged recently by transport government is reviewed. Five financial sources of PPPs for low carbon project implementation are identified and discussed, namely, central government finance, regional government finance, highway corporation finance, other state-owned enterprises (SOE) and society private company finance. A survey of the financial source from LCPs employed in several low-carbon highway infrastructure projects nominated by China MOT is introduced, and the suitability based on LCPs attribute analysis used in different road infrastructure projects. Furthermore, advice of financial promotion on LCPs effective implementation is proposed by its attributes of greenhouse gases (GHGs) reduction efficiency, energy saving efficiency, financial feasibility, technology readiness, risk and uncertainty, and community and industrial acceptance to assist state highway agencies in better incorporating climate change mitigation and adaption strategies into their project delivery processes.