Energy Conservation、Carbon Emissions And Economic Growth Of China

Resource conservation is a common concern of mankind. Environmental protection and economic growth remain a focus of academic research, in which energy conservation, carbon emission reduction and economic growth occupy the prominant position. If we recognize the status quo of the imbalance and uncoordination between energy consumption, carbon emissions and economic growth, that is due to China’s extensive economic growth which brings about by the characteristics of the development of China’s industrialization, the curing demand structure in the stage of the process of promoting urbanization and the low-end of the global industrial division. So, in facing of the energy shortage, the contradiction between carbon emissions and economic growth and the international pressure on the world’s climate change, we should raise a comprehensive resource conservation and carbon emission reduction from different angles to achieve the commitments made by China in the international climate negotiations, that is the carbon dioxide emissions of per unit GDP (carbon intensity of GDP) decreased by40-45%in2020, compared to2005and the proportion of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption dropped to15%.Firstly, this paper combs the research literature on the relationship between resources (energy), the environment (carbon emissions) and economic growth, and finds that the resources and environment have gone through different development stages during which they are once neglected, payed full attention to in the mainstream economic growth theory. With the emphasis on the role of natural resources (energy) factors in economic growth, and environmental damage resulted from economic growth, especially the increasing environmental pollution which is caused by the consumption of natural resources, such as greenhouse gas effect, the resources and environmental issues in the theory of economic growth, the coordination of them, that is, the sustainable economic growth, energy saving and carbon emission reduction has become the core of the current study.However, another aspect of the problem is how we achieve sustainable economic growth under the constraints of resources (energy) and environment (carbon emissions). This paper, based on the neoclassical growth theory and new growth theory (endogenous growth theory) respectively, by bringing energy resources and carbon emissions into the economic growth model, and setting for the various parameters appropriately, and parsing through the equilibrium solution, reaches the basic conditions for sustained economic growth, that is the growth rate of energy consumption can not be greater than the stock of energy, which means that the stock of energy has to meet the energy demand, while the growth rate of the pollutants can not be greater than0, that is the quality of the environment can not be declined infinitely with the scale of the economic output.Secondly, the article makes a preliminary study of the motivation of China’s economic growth from the perspective of energy consumption, and does an empirical estimate of the coordination of energy consumption, carbon emissions and economic growth. The Granger causality tests of energy consumption, carbon emissions and economic growth show that the energy consumption constitutes a mutual causal relationship with carbon emissions and economic growth; The path analysis show that there is a bidirectional causality relationship between energy consumption and economic growth; economic growth has causal relationship on carbon emissions and is also the same for energy consumption and carbon emissions, which, to some extent, indicates that China’s economic growth is heavily dependent on energy consumption and leads to the environment deterioration. Next, by using the nonlinear programming techniques, the article measures the environment efficiency of the environment and economic output based on directional distance function. The results indicate that the relationship between energy consumption, carbon emissions and economic growth is in imbalance in central and western regions of China; while, it’s harmonious in the developed eastern coastal regions; however, the relationship between energy consumption, carbon emissions and economic growth continues to deteriorate on the terms of each province in China. The uncoordinated relationship shows once again that the sharp contradictions between energy consumption, carbon emissions and economic growth, so there is still a long way to go for achieving China’s economic green growth.Since, under the certain conditions, economic growth is sustainable, that is the resources (energy), environment (carbon emissions) and economic growth can be developed coordinately, therefore, we shall adopt policies or market’s laws to achive coordination and balance development of the three factors, and to achieve the’good and fast’ development of China’s economy fundamentally. Thus, in the particular historical stage of China’s industrialization and urbanization, a more intuitive problem is that:under the premise of maintaining sustainable economic growth, how to control the consumptions of energy, especially the one-off or fossil energy resources, and how to achieve a real reduction of carbon emissions in China.Under the two clearly objectives and the current stage of China’s excessive energy consumption, in particular the consumption of disposable fossil energy, which causes pollutants seriously overweight, especially over carbon emissions, the paper focuses on the energy saving countermeasures under China’s sustainable economic growth and the carbon emission reduction countermeasures under China’s continuous economic growth.The research of resource saving countermeasures under China’s sustained economic growth starting from the energy intensity targets in the coming2015and2020is mainly a model construction of energy consumption and the causing factors, in which the stage of industrialization and urbanization are considered.By setting the coming value of energy influencing factors, this paper predicts per capita energy consumption in2015and2020, and then gets the predicted energy intensity value which is slightly higher than the government planned value, which shows that China’s future energy economical pressure still remains high. Finally, giving the deviation of setting the future value of the influencing factors, this paper makes univariate sensitivity analysis by fine-tuning these factors, and finds that the adjustment of industrial structure and technological progress will become preferred choice to achieve future energy intensity target or energy conservation of China, followed by changing energy relative prices and trade structure. Accordingly, this paper proposes the policy recommendations of energy savings which is that we must implement mandatory energy savings during active advocating energy savings. On this basis, the article also makes a comprehensive analysis by using the above model to establish the panel data model from the provincial and industrial point view of. Provincially, China’s energy savings can be achived by optimizing the industrial structure and reducing the proportion of some industries, especially the high energy-consuming industries in the national economy; to enhance relative energy prices is not conducive to energy consumption savings of China, and it harms the low-energy, mid-energy and high-energy consumption units; improving the high efficiency energy such as electric power to replace the low efficiency energy such as coal is conducive to ultimate energy consumption savings of China, but different measures should be taken according to local conditions. From the industry perspective, there is a big difference of energy consumption between many industries within China’s industrial sectors, so the significantly influencing factors and the size of impact of energy consumption are various in the differently industries with different energy consumption characteristics. Therefore, under the premising of China’s sustained economic growth, the energy saving measures should be specific analysis and treated differently for different industries. Generally, the key energy-saving industry are manufacturing and the primary means is relying on the technological progress.The research of carbon emission reduction countermeasures of China under sustainable economic growth is mainly through establishing the LSTR model of carbon dioxide emissions per capita and GDP per capita, by using the rate of economic growth and energy intensity as the threshold variable respectively. The results show that the relationship between carbon dioxide emissions and GDP per capita is various under different economic environment (such as different economic growth rate and energy intensity). To achieving a win-win of carbon emission reduction and economic growth, and making the coordinating development between energy savings, carbon emissions and economic growth, we must work hard on how to reduce energy intensity. Next, this paper comprehensively analyze how to reduce energy intensity based on the point of view of the national, provinces and industries. By analyzing the impulse response and variance decomposition of the structure vector error correction model (SVECM) of the national energy intensity, we find that the energy price reform and improving the openness are the key reasons to reduce energy intensity quickly in the short-term, while in the long-term, we must vigorously develop renewable energy and clean energy to changer our energy consumption structure completely. From the provincial energy intensity impulse response and variance decomposition, we find that the carbon emission reduction should be treated differently for various provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions from different aspects. Overall, it’s the key to reduce energy intensity of various provinces which is optimizing the energy consumption structure and industrial structure, and make technological progress and energy price adjusting as the main means of reducing energy intensity. Specifically, for the higher energy intensity group, which include the province of Qinghai, Guizhou, Shanxi and Ningxia, we have to make effort on the adjustment of the industrial structure and energy consumption; for the mid energy intensity group, which include Sichuan, Chongqing, Heilongjiang, Shaanxi, Yunnan, Jilin, Liaoning, Hebei, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Gansu, we have focus on adjusting industrial structure and technological progress; for the low energy intensity group, which consist of Fujian, Guangdong, Hainan, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Shandong, Beijing, Hunan, Anhui, Tianjin and Henan, due to the role of the various factors are smaller, so the pressure on energy savings is smaller. By analyzing the impulse response and variance decomposition of industry energy intensity, we find that, after impacting various influencing factors, there exist the reverse effect between energy consumption structure, technological progress and energy prices, while a positive role for trade structure, both have the actively continuing effect to reducing energy intensity, in which the effect of energy consumption structure is the largest and the rest are less. From the variance decomposition results, it can be seen that the contributions of energy prices and energy consumption structure to energy savings is the largest and is small for technological progress and trade structure. Therefore, for the terms of industries, the focus of energy saving is still based on the deeply adjustment of the structure of energy consumption.