Environmental Regulation And Carbon Productivity Changes

Global climate change is a major challenge for human beings. In recent years, with the deepening of inter governmental response to the global climate change cooperation and the improvement of public environmental awareness of low carbon, carbon dioxide emission rights become the world's major strategic resources in the international climate negotiations. And at the same time, it has gradually become an effective weapon for the industrialized developed countries to constrain the developing countries. Since 2006, China has actually become the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide, and now it is facing increasing pressure to reduce carbon emissions. During the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009, China's government made a commitment to carbon emission reduction for the first time, and since then the development and low carbon have always being the two major themes of China's economy which cannot be avoided. On the one hand, Chinese industrialization and modernization have not completed, and there are a considerable number of people out of poverty. China's economy needs continue to maintain steady growth in high speed. On the other hand, as a responsible country China needs to seriously carry out the carbon emission reduction commitments in response to the concerns of international community, while striving to achieve a low-carbon development of economy and industry during this process. These measures can lay a good foundation for achieving sustainable economic and social development.Climate change is becoming more and more serious, which makes the discharge space of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere become a precious resource for all mankind. On the issue of balancing the relationship between economic development and carbon emission reduction, improving carbon productivity has become the only correct choice for developing countries including China. China has long been respectively extensive economic growth mode, while coal-based energy production and consumption patterns will not be fundamentally changed in the short term. These practical difficulties doomed low-carbon transformation of China's economy will be a gradual process. From the view of China's foreign trade, we still at the low end position of the global trading system, and the outlet end is still relatively dependent on raw material processing and labor-intensive goods. Raising the carbon emission standards or enhancing the environmental regulation when trading in a short term does not conform to the reality of China's economic development. Therefore, the rising carbon productivity can help us realize industrial structure's gradual low carbon transformation, and in the process of fulfilling the global carbon emission reduction obligations, we can ultimately achieve the absolute reduction of carbon emissions and economic sustainable development. However, to achieve a continuous improvement of carbon productivity requires the protection of long-term effective policy measures. China's current carbon emission reduction policy mainly based on administrative compulsory regulation, meanwhile, the real environmental regulation intensity tend to be weak, and the effect of environmental regulation is also not obvious.Therefore, this dissertation starts from the basic law of environmental regulation and carbon productivity, then analyze the historical evolution of the present stage of China's environmental regulation, regulatory tools and the specific implementation of the regulatory intensity, and meanwhile specifically expound the status of China's carbon productivity changes. We mainly discuss the impact of environmental regulation on carbon productivity from the stage of China's environmental regulation and carbon productivity, and then promote empirical investigation from the regional level and industry level.This dissertation firstly discussed the relevant theories of environmental regulation and carbon productivity, which based on clarifying the domestic and foreign literature of environmental regulation, carbon emissions and low carbon development. In the process of elaborating the theory of environmental regulation, we proposed the aim of environmental regulation is to protect resources and the environment and combat climate change. The main form of environmental regulation depends on administrative orders, market adjustment, self constraint, which need for a specific regulatory constraints and social economic activities undertaken by the government, associations, enterprises, organizations and individuals. The core environmental regulation means include Pigou and Coase, and from the perspective of specific regulatory tool classification environmental regulation can be divided into three types of administrative compulsion, market adjustment and self-discipline. During the process of elaborating carbon productivity, we mainly take environmental Kuznets curve theory, decoupling development theory and low carbon economy theory as the foundation. Promoting Carbon productivity industrial low-carbon transformation is just a process of realizing the relationship between economic growth and carbon emissions gradually "decoupling", which through the low-carbon economic development model to reduce the peak of carbon emissions Kuznets curve to urge the arrival of inflection point as soon as possible. Based on the above analysis, this dissertation put forward the impact mechanism of environmental regulation on carbon productivity, and the ultimate effect of environmental regulation on carbon productivity showed positive and negative. These two effects may be embodied in the direct impact of environmental regulation on economic growth and carbon emissions, and it also may be embodied through the indirect impact of environmental regulation on economic scale, industrial structure, technological progress and the economic open level.Based on the theoretical analysis, this dissertation focused on the status of Chinese environmental regulation and carbon productivity changes, and we analyzed environmental regulation and carbon productivity changes from the perspective of region and industry. About the current situation of environmental regulation, there was a great volatility of intensity of environmental regulation in China, and the environmental regulation was more intensive in western region. From the perspective of industry, the regulatory intensity was greater in the traditional energy-intensive or pollution-intensive industries. In terms of current carbon productivity, China's carbon productivity showed a steady upward trend in recent years. The carbon productivity level was higher in eastern region and in the high technology and clean industry, while carbon productivity level in western region and pollution intensive industry still have much room for improvement.In order to carry out further examination about the environmental regulation's impact on carbon productivity, we carried out an empirical research from the perspectives of region and industry, which based on theoretical elaboration and present situation analysis of the above environmental regulation and carbon productivity. For regional empirical analysis, we mainly used spatial data analytical methods to test the spatial correlation of carbon productivity, and based on this spatial dada analysis we chose Spatial Durbin Model for econometric analysis. The empirical results revealed that carbon productivity in China showed a significant spatial correlation, and the influential direction of environmental regulation's impact on carbon productivity in the same regions and adjacent regions were consistent. This means that the current environmental regulation is not conducive to increase carbon productivity within the same region, and it also restrained the improvement of carbon productivity in adjacent regions. The overall intensity of environmental regulation in eastern, central and western regions tend to be weak, and the environmental regulation's innovation offsets have not effectively worked. In terms of industrial empirical analysis, this dissertation used panel data analytical methods to analyze industrial environmental regulation's impact on carbon productivity, including analyses of the whole Chinese industries and several industrial groups which were divided according to carbon productivity level. On the whole, the environmental regulation's impact on carbon productivity has a threshold in the industrial sector, and it shows inverted U relationship between environmental regulation and industrial carbon productivity. Industrial environmental regulation intensity of each group is at the left side of the inflection point, we still need to continue to increase the intensity of environmental regulation.Due to the above analytical results, this dissertation put forward countermeasures and suggestions to improve carbon productivity and promote the low carbon transformation of China's industry, including several aspects of opening policy, environmental regulation policy and industrial development policy. The most critical aspect should be based on the characteristics of China's industrial development in different stages. To promote the implementation of environmental regulation scientifically and reasonably, we should take the actual situation in region and industry into account in order to ensure steady improvement in carbon productivity.