Research On China's Low-carbon Economy Based On Technological Progress

Global climate change is the most significant environmental problems to date, and also it is themost serious challenges faced by humanity in the21st century. Climate change is mainly caused byhuman activities, so reducing anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases is the primary measures tosolve climate change problem. In2003, the British pioneered the development of "low-carboneconomy", and the other countries have followed suit afterwards. China is the world's largest carbonemitter, and also is a highly responsible country to the world environment, so it is an inevitable choiceto develope low-carbon economy and reduce the carbon dioxide emissions of the economicdevelopment gradually.Compared with developed countries and regions, there is a big technology gap to developelow-carbon economy for China, so it is essential to promote the rapid development of low-carbontechnologies. This paper analyzes the following aspects: the carbon emissions status andcharacteristics of different regions in China, the technological advances effect elasticity and carbonemission reduction, the technology options direction to develope low-carbon economy for China, themode selection of low-carbon economy technological innovation and international technology transfer,the low-carbon technologies and emission reduction potential of key areas which take an example ofthe construction sector.Firstly, using apparent energy consumption estimation method, according to the provincesenergy consumption data over the years, the paper estimates the carbon dioxide emissions of the30provinces in China from1996to2008, and make comparisons between the differentregions.According the results, the carbon dioxide emissions showed a rapid growth trend in China,but there is a very obvious difference between different provinces, and the difference shows expansiletrend.As to the eastern, central and western regions in China, the carbon emissions shows also veryobvious difference.Among them, the eastern region carbon emissions is the largest, accounting forabout50%of the total emission, and it shows the upward trend. While the carbon emissions ratio ofthe central region has been decreasing slowly, in the western region, the carbon emissions ratioremains relatively stable.Secondly, using STIRPAT model and LMDI factor decomposition method respectively, thispaper analyzes the demographic, economic and technological impact elasticity of carbon dioxideemissions, and the contribution of carbon dioxide emissions between different factors. The resultsshowed that, the demographic, economic and technological elasticity in different regions is different. Among them, technological elasticity is positive, which means that technological progress(ie, energyintensity decline) can alleviat the carbon emissions to some extent. The "U"-type Kuznets curverelationship is existent between carbon dioxide emissions and economic growth,but it need a verylong time to achieve the inflexion of the curve. In addition, China's carbon dioxide emissions show anobvious phenomenon of path dependence, the current period of economic growth will impact the airquality of next1-4years at least. The technological progress effect to reduce carbon dioxideemissions is very obvious, but the impact of technology shows stage variation feature. In1996-2008,the carbon emission reduction is about588.25million tons carbon due to technological progress.Thirdly, using fuzzy AHP method, this paper builts the index system of low-carbon technologyoptions. In this system, there are five first-level indicators, including technology assessment, strategicbenefit evaluation, financial benefit evaluation, social assessment and risk evaluation.On this basis,the paper thinks that, to develop low-carbon economy, we should choose the low-carbontechnologies in four areas as a priority. That is as follows: the common technology which is as thecarrier of the information, biotechnology and other new technologies, the source emission reductiontechnologies, including clean coal technology and new energy technologies etc, the technologiesrelatedto improve resource utilization objectives, including clean production technologies,eco-industry links technologies and resources comprehensive utilization technologies of socialdimensions, carbon capture and sequestration technology.Fourthly, on the basis of low-carbon technology innovation meaning and characteristics, thispaper constructs an open low-carbon technologies innovation system,including low-carbon productscustomers, universities and research institutions, government departments, agencies (financialinstitutions and technical services), business alliances and other departments. In addition, this paperanalyzes the model choice of low-carbon technologies innovation, it shows that, when the enterpriseindependent innovation success probability is high, and the transaction costs of cooperationinnovation in larger, enterprises tend to select independent innovation. When the probability to obtaina high level technology fruit is greater, or the capacity of enterprises independent innovation isstronger, the company will select to purchase technology. When the probability to obtain a low leveltechnology fruit is greater, or the capacity of enterprises independent innovation is weaker, thecompany will select joint development technology.Fifthly, according to evolutionary game theory, this paper analyzes the pattern and strategy oflow carbon technologies international transfer. The results showed that, to encourage themultinational companies to transfer low carbon technologies to China, we should minimize the cost ofmultinational corporations technology transfer. And we should encourage multinational companies toinvest and set up factories in China, welcome them to enter our country by wholly-owned and other forms firstly. When the technology spillovers loss of low-carbon technologies is greater, we may tryto make one multinational company transfer the technology to Chinese enterprises. Meanwhile, toenhannce low carbon technology international transfer, we need to establish new mechanisms forlow-carbon technologies international cooperation. The main points include:strengtheningintergovernmental cooperation, stimulating private sector participation, focusing on joint technicalresearch and development, assessing the effect of low-carbon technology transfer, establishinginnovative financing mechanisms, and so on.Sixthly, this article overviews the key low-carbon technologies of construction sector. And usingscenario analysis method, we analyze the energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions ofbuilding sector in China under different scenarios. The results show that, under the technology freezescenario, the baseline scenario and low-carbon scenario, the building sector energy consumption willincrease over2.105billion tons of standard coal,1.167billion tons of coal and0.294billion tons ofcoal respectively by2030compared to2007. As for carbon dioxide emissions, under the threescenarios, the construction sector carbon emissions will increase4billion tons of carbon,2.1billiontons of carbon and0.5billion tons of carbon respectively. It shows that low-carbon technologies havea very obvious effect to drop carbon dioxide emissions for the construction sector in China.Seventhly, the article analyzes the contradictions and policy recommendations of low-carbontechnology in China. Among them,the difficulty includes that, the low-carbon technology researchand development capacity is weak, and the international transfer of low carbon technologies facesobstacles, and the low-carbon technology level is backward, etc.The policy recommendations includethat, making the roadmap of low carbon technology, promoting low-carbon technology innovation,pushing international transfer of low carbon technology, accelerating the application of low carbontechnology.