Shanghai Energy Research Group's Way Of Life

The energy consumption and carbon emission in China is rising sharply because of Chinses rapid economic growth and dependency on heavy industry and chemical industry for years.China is the biggest energy consumption and carbon emission country. As a result,China’s social and economic sustainable development is restricted.And China is questioned and suffur the pressure from other countries.So the energy saving and emission reduction in China is a arduous task.In the mean time,china is in the process of rapid economic growth and urbanization.So the Chinses income and living standards are rising fast.Because the contribution of export to economic growth weakened, the Chinese government is promoting domestic demand to drive the economy. In the process of transformation of the development mode, the consumption level of Chinses people is rising and the lifestyle is facing great changes.According to the experience of developed countries,the lifestyle always becomes high-consumption and high energy consumption when the income is rising.And other groups always imitate the lifestyle of high energy consumption group,so their energy consumption becomes higher.In the mean time,the energy consumption in the process of production for meeting the rising consumption is rising too. Considering the huge population scale in China, people from China and other counties all agree that Chinese people should not intimate the high energy consumption lifestyle of developed countries. Otherwise, China and the whole world will suffur from the huge increase of energy consumption and carbon emission.So in the work of energy saving and emission reduction,the changing of lifestyle of Chinese people should be noticed and guided.And the imitation the lifestyle of developed countries should be avoided.However,which kind of change is happening about Chinese lifestyle? Has China already existed high energy consumption group? There are lacks of studies for these basic and key problems.There are huge differences in different areas in China.The possibility of exsiting high energy consumption group is higher in economic developed area of China. So this paper chose Shanghai as an example.Becaues it has the highest income and consumption level and urbanization rate.People from China and other counties all agree that Chinese people should not intimate the lifestyle of developed countries which is high energy consumption and high carbon emission. So the paper chose the level of energy consumption and carbon emission in daily life of people from developed countries as the standard to define the high energy consumption and high carbon emission group in China.According to the comparion of energy consumption and carbon emission of different developed countries, find out the American people has higer energy consumption and carbon emission level because of the difference of lifestyle.This is mainly reflected in the area of house and using of private car.Comparing to other developed countries, American people lives in lager house and uses more private car.And these results in higher energy consumption and carbon emission level in daily life.It also illustrates that lifestyle has important impact on energy consumption and carbon emission in daily life.Take Shanghai as an example,using the statistic data of consumpiotn and environmental Input-Output Model to calculate the total energy consumption and total carbon emissin in daily life of Shanghai.The result shows that the total energy consumption and total carbon emissin in daily life of high income group is similar to developed countries.So this group is high energy consumption and carbon emission group.In order to know more about the lifestyle of this group,using the information from a survey about people in Shanghai.At first,chose the level of energy consumption in daily life of people from Britain and America as standards to define the high energy consumption and super-high energy consumption group in Shanghai.Then,using the information from the survey to analyes the feature and lifestyle of high energy consumption and super-high energy consumption group in Shanghai. And the result shows that the lifestyle of high energy consumption group is similar to the developed countries.Another result is the lifestyle of high energy consumption group has lock-in and draw-in effect.The lock-in effect displays as when people chose to live in a big house and dirve a private car, his or her lifestyle will lock in a high energy consumption level.So China shoule avoid people becoming high energy consumption group before lock-in and contral the consumtion of big houses and private cars. The draw-in effect displays as the following two aspact.First, people fron low income group is intimating the lifestyle of high energy consumption group.Second, rich person and people with higher income is chosing the lifestyle of high energy consumption group. So the populaiton of high energy consumption group is increasing.Based on brief calculation, the populaiton of high energy consumption group in Shanghai is4.83million and123million in the whole China. And the populaiton of high energy consumption group is increasing. This is because in the process of rapid economic growth and urbanization,Chinses people’s income and living standards are rising fast.In the same time,more and more rich people choose the lifestyle of developed countries.Effected by the consumerism from western society,the demands on luxury and fashion goods are rising. High income people choose the lifestyle of developed countries and become a member of high energy consumption group.And China is in the process of transformation of the development mode.The government is promoting domestic demand to drive the economy.The related measures stimulate the consumerism.Especially for the measures about stimulating the consumption of houses and cars motivate people to intimate the lifestyle of developed countries. So there are more and more people become a member of high energy consumption group.The increasing consumption of villa, expensive housing and private cars shows that Chinese people is affected by the consumerism and the measures about stimulating consumption.In the above process,we should pay attention to the increasing of energy consumption in consumption and production.The paper puts forward the standard to define the high energy consumption in China.And the result shows that Shanghai and the whole China has a huge group of people with high energy consumption. This is because more and more people choose the lifestyle of developed countries which is affacted by the consumerism and measures about stimulating consumption in China.Because the lifestyle of high energy consumption group has lock-in and draw-in effect,it will has long and increasing effect on the energy consumption of China. This shows that there are contradiction between the measures about stimulating consumption in China and the building of a resource conservation and environmental friendly society. So we should think about the sustainability of the Chinese development mode which is driving the economic growth by promoting domestic demand. And we should think about which kind lifestyle is appropriate for china.The paper has the following policy implication.First,in order to avoid following the develop path of the United States, we should choose compact city and comprehensive urban layout to reduce the energy consumption and waste in transportation.Second, after meeting the needs of house of low income people,we should contral the consumption of villa and expensive housing. And we should also contral the using of private cars.Third,the government should stimulate consumption of high quality service.This can bring Chinese people to a appropriate lifestyle and increase the the quality of life and happiness.In the same time, the consumption of service can drive the economic growth and create job opportunities for new city population.Finally, in order to resolve the contradiction between increasing the quality of life and resource conservation,China should offer people a more convenient and comfortable life by providing more public products and services but not by increasing the consumption of private material.