The Impact Of Clean Power Development On Coupling Coordination Of “Economy Growth-Carbon Emission” And Policies Research

The report of the 20th National Congress of China proposed that to build a beautiful China,we should work together to promote national“carbon reduction”and“growth”.However,at this stage,the contradiction between reducing carbon dioxide（CO₂）emissions and economic growth still exists in China.At present,coal is still the main driving force for China’s economic growth,but it is known that the burning of fossil energy produces massive greenhouse gas emissions.Reducing the dominant position of coal and developing clean energy may become the key driving force for the coordinated evolution of“carbon reduction”and“growth”.Therefore,this paper studies the impact of clean power development on the coupling coordination between CO₂ emissions and economic growth.However,the study found that to exert the positive driving effect of clean power on the coordinated evolution of“carbon reduction”and“growth”,its development level needs to reach a certain threshold.Unfortunately,most provinces in China are below this extreme point currently.The main reason hindering the high-quality development of clean power in China is inadequate absorption.Thus,this paper studies the development policies from the macro and micro perspectives.Specifically,the contents of this paper mainly focus on the following aspects:（1）The impact of clean power development on the coupling coordination between economic growth and CO₂ emissions.Firstly,this paper builds a coupling coordination model to measure the synergy between economic growth and CO₂emissions in China.Secondly,this paper constructs a spatial panel model to test the impact of clean power development on the coupling coordination degree and decomposes the possible spatial spillover effects of various economic variables.Thirdly,the intermediary effect model is selected to examine the mechanism of the impact of clean power on the coupling coordination degree.In addition,the extreme point is calculated to understand whether the clean power of all provinces in China has reached the level of that is driving the coordinated development of economic growth and CO₂ emissions.Finally,based on the above research,a systematic development dilemma analysis is carried out.（2）Policy research from Macro-Perspective.In theory,the spot electricity market reform makes great contributions to solving the problem of uneven distribution of power resources in different regions and clean electricity consumption.However,there is no empirical test on this in the literature.Therefore,based on the panel data of the provincial level in China from 1998 to 2020,this paper verifies whether the pilot policy of spot market of electricity can promote the development of clean electricity by building a difference-in-differences（DID）model,and further constructs a mediation effect model and adds the method of transportation item regression to test the impact mechanism and regulatory effect.（3）Policy research from Micro-Perspective.Firstly,this paper analyzes the questionnaire data to understand the contradiction between Chinese residents’attitudes and behavioral intentions.Secondly,this paper constructs a binary-probit model to test the influencing factors of the consistency and further analyzes the urban-rural and regional heterogeneity.Thirdly,clean energy is divided into nuclear energy and renewable energy for a comparative analysis of influencing factors.Additionally,it is found that the contradiction between residents’attitudes and behavioral intention is mainly manifested in their willingness to support national renewable energy development but will not take actual actions.Therefore,this paper studies how to achieve consistency between these residents’attitudes and behavioral intentions by using the method of sample selection regression.Finally,the intermediary effect model is used to verify whether attitude is intermediary variable that other factors affect residents’behavioral intentions.Based on the above research contents,this paper has the following conclusions.（1）The coupling coordination degree between China’s economic growth and CO₂ emissions showed an increasing trend year by year from 1998 to 2017.But the overall coupling coordination degree of the country has declined in 2018-2019.The coupling coordination degree between the economic growth and CO₂ emissions of the eastern coastal areas is better than that of other regions.The GS2SLSXT estimation results show that the coordinated development between regional economic growth and CO₂ emission has a positive spatial spillover effect on the surrounding areas and the relationship between clean power development and the coupling coordination degree is“U”.After inspection,the upgrading of energy consumption structure and the improvement of technological innovation capability are the mechanisms by which the clean power development affects coupling coordination degree.Additionally,there are technical barriers in China’s inter-regional development,but improving energy efficiency and upgrading industrial structure can effectively promote the coordinated promotion of economic growth and carbon reduction in neighboring regions.It is worth noting that only Hubei,Sichuan,Yunnan,Gansu,and Qinghai provinces have reached the extreme point level in terms of the development level of clean power in 2019.According to the analysis,the current difficulties faced by China’s clean power development include insufficient scale and consumption issues.（2）The power spot market pilot mainly promotes the development of clean electricity in the central and western pilot regions by influencing the level of marketization and energy consumption structure.The power spot market pilot has a regulatory effect on the relationship between environmental regulation,urbanization,industrial structure and clean power development.Specifically,the power spot market pilot strengthens the role of environmental regulation in promoting the development of clean power.Compared with non-pilot areas,clean electricity in pilot areas develops due to the improvement of urbanization level.The power spot trading mode weakens the negative impact of the development of the secondary industry on the clean energy industry.（3）Subjective factors,socio-economic factors and demographic factors have a significant impact on the consistency between residents’attitudes and behavioral intentions to support clean energy development.Among them,subjective factors play the most important role.Income,education and energy supply satisfaction have a greater impact on rural residents,while concerning about climate change,environment and carbon emissions have a greater impact on urban residents.In addition,subjective factors,socio-economic factors and demographic factors also have significant differences in the impact on consistency in the East,Middle and West.Considering the difference between nuclear energy and renewable energy,women are more willing to support renewable energy development,while men are more likely to support nuclear energy development.Residents’majors or occupations related to energy are more likely to support nuclear energy development.Attitude is the intermediary variable that variables such as concerning about climate change,environment and other issues,electricity cognition,carbon emissions cognition,education and gender affect residents’behavioral intentions.This paper has the following innovations:（1）The contents.Firstly,compared with the previous research on the economic and environmental effects brought by the clean energy development by the simultaneous equations,this paper uses the coupling coordination degree model to calculate the coordinated development level between the economic growth and CO₂emissions,and directly studies the impact of the development of clean power on the coupling coordination of the two.Secondly,this paper is the first to use DID model to evaluate the effect of the pilot policy of spot market at the end of 2018 on clean power development.Thirdly,the previous research on residents’support for clean energy development is limited to the perspective of attitude,behavior intention or behavior separately.Considering the inconsistency between residents’attitudes and behavioral intentions,this paper mainly studies how to achieve coordination between the two.In addition,the existing researches rarely pay attention to the differences between urban and rural areas and regions.This paper conducts a comparative study on the factors that affect the consistency between urban and rural areas and among eastern,central and western regions.（2）The methods.1)Theoretical method.Theory of Planned Behavior and Theory of Cognitive Dissonance are combined to study the consistency between residents’attitudes and behavioral intentions.2)Empirical methods.The spatial spillover effect is introduced into the empirical models.The GS2SLSXT estimation method and DID model are used to overcome the endogenous problem.The binary-probit model is used to solve the estimation error caused by the correlation between the perturbation terms of the equation.Overall,this paper follows the research idea of“testing impact→finding difficulties→solving difficulties”,and ultimately proposes targeted and actionable policy recommendations for government to develop the clean electricity at the macro and micro levels in order to adjust and optimize the relationship between economic growth and CO₂ emissions.