Emission trading scheme (ETS) promotes carbon emission reductions by leveraging market incentives for enterprises. However, the lack of enthusiasm among enterprises in China’s building carbon emission trading market signals some deficiencies in its incentive mechanism. This study establishes an evolutionary game model involving three parties, including the government and heterogeneous enterprises, to explore the behavioral evolution process of multiple game players and improve the incentive mechanism for carbon emission reduction. The results demonstrate that the development path of enterprises’ participation in the emission trading market undergoes four evolutionary stages: the initial stage, the transitional stage, the growth stage and the mature stage. Also, the results of sensitivity analysis demonstrate that (1) rewards and penalties are the tools for government regulation and market incentives; (2) enterprises are not very enthusiastic about participating in carbon trading activities and adopting carbon-reduction technologies; (3) the rise in carbon quota trading prices can prompt enterprises to actively reduce carbon emissions. Based on the results, this study proposes an executable implementation framework for the carbon-reduction incentive mechanism of public buildings under ETS, providing practical guidance for local governments to formulate and implement targeted carbon-reduction policies, aiming to boost the enthusiasm of building enterprises for low-carbon behaviors and decision-making choices.
Zhu et al. (Tue,) studied this question.