Decoupling The Effect Of The Carbon Emission From Electric Power And Economic Growth

China,as the world’s largest carbon emitter,is facing enormous pressure of carbon emission reduction.The carbon emission generated by the power industry is one of the main industries that lead to the increase of carbon emission in China,accounting for about 40% of the total carbon emission.Therefore,it is of great practical significance to study the influencing factors of carbon emission in the power industry and put forward relevant policy recommendations for China’s energy conservation and emission reduction.Taking 30 provinces and cities in China as the research object,this paper specifically explores the driving factors affecting carbon emissions in the power industry and further analyzes the relationship between economic growth and carbon emissions using Tapio decoupling theory,based on the data of energy consumption for thermal power generation in 2007-2017.First of all,this paper calculates the carbon emissions of the power industry,and obtains the annual change trend of carbon emissions.The results show that the carbon emissions in 2011,2014 and 2016 show a decreasing trend,and the other years are increasing.Secondly,this paper uses the LMDI factorization method to decompose the carbon emission of power industry into eight driving factors: carbon emission coefficient,conversion efficiency,power structure,power generation and consumption ratio,power consumption intensity,economic scale,provincial population distribution and population scale.From a macro and regional perspective,this paper analyzes the direction and size of the role of various driving factors in the carbon emissions of the power industry.The results show that the carbon emission of China’s electric power industry is increasing year by year,among which the conversion efficiency,electric power structure,the proportion of power generation and consumption intensity have negative contribution to carbon emission,and the population distribution,population scale and economic scale have positive contribution to carbon emission,which shows that improving the conversion efficiency,the proportion of power generation and consumption intensity and optimizing the electric power structure can effectively restrain carbon emission generation of carbon emissions in the power industry.Finally,this paper introduces Tapio decoupling theory model,and analyzes the decoupling state of carbon emissions and economic growth in the power industry from the macro and regional perspectives.Through the research and analysis of these three parts,we can know the change trend of carbon emission in the power industry and the change of decoupling status year by year.The results show that China was in a state of strong decoupling in 2011,2014 and 2016,negative decoupling in 2013 and 2017,and weak decoupling in the rest years.Among the driving factors,conversion efficiency,power structure,power generation and consumption ratio and power consumption intensity play a positive role in decoupling,economic scale and population scale play a negative role in decoupling,while provincial population distribution has no significant effect on decoupling.All of these can provide theoretical basis for the local government to formulate energy conservation and emission reduction policies for the power industry.