A Study On The Optimization Of Industrial Structure Based On Low-carbon Economy

With China's Reform and Opening-up, China has experienced a quick economicgrowth for quite a long time. And in the first decade of 21st century, China fullyutilize a strategic opportunity to achieve advantages in both economic developmentand social progress. But the price for all these achievements cannot be negelected.During the same time, China's consumption of energy and emission of CO2have bothincreased dramatically, which leads China's energy and economic security to a verydangerous situation. Thus, the development of low-carbon economy is now theoptimal way and the only way for China to maintain economic growth.The cause of these problems lies in China's industrial structure. Among agriculture,industry and service, the industry has a absolutely dominant situation over the othertwo. And in the industry, energy and raw materials occupy most of the renevue. Inrecent years, the high-tec industry grows fast, but did not realize higher technologylevel or additional value.The analysis of this paper begins with the difinitions of industry, industrystructure and low-carbon economy. The industry has been difined as a collection ofenterprises producing the same or similar products who share common input, rawmaterials and the same technology. Industry structure is the quantity and relative ratioof different industries. Low-carbon economy, as most people agreed, is a fully neweconomic developing method with the character of low energy consumption, lowpollution and low emission. It is the output of development of human society.The relationship between indutrial structure and low-carbon economy is theemphasis of this paper, which lies in that the change and upgrade of industrialstructure is essencial for the realzation of low-carbon economy. In fact, this topic hasbeen discussed in economy for quite a long time. The basic law of industrial structurechange has been discovered, with the efforts from William Petty, Clark, Kuznets,Chenery and other famous economists. But with the restraints from resources, climate,tightened, those classical laws of industrial structure must be modified before they canbe applied in today's economic analysis. Those developing countries like China, cannont follow the developed countries'path of"emission first, control later". Theonly way for them is to achieve development with pollution and emission control.Despite the differeces between the developed and developing countries, theexperiences from those developed can still provide useful insight and enlightment forthose developing. First, considering the complication and variety of low-carbontechnology, it is not possible or necessary to acquire all the technologies. It is optimalto develop technologies according to real situation and demand both for now and thefuture. Second, the governments, as a large and powerful force, should take activeactions in the process, pushing and monitoring. Third, a comprehensive system ofpolicies should be in place, including fiscal policy, financial support, industrial policyand guide and education for microeconomic agents.As to China, the history and trend of China's industrial structure are deeplyaffected by China's energy structure, the process of industrialization and urbenization.Thus there are many factors in China's economy that block the way to low-carboneconomy for China, such as rigidity of industrial structure, adverse fiscal policies andlack of low-carbon competence. According to these, a whole system of politicalmeasures has been developed in this paper, including an outer circumstance suitablefor China's low-carbon transformation, a consumption structure with proper quantity,a low-carbon technology strategy providing low-carbon technology as demanded, andfiscal and financial policies supporting microeconomic agents to adopt and utilizelow-carbon technologies and produce low-carbon products.