| The present study analyses the significant factors of higher carbon emission in Chinese provinces.In addition,this study attempts to provide an optimal solution which may help to control the carbon emission.We have decided to choose this topic and attempt to make our contribution by delivering some fruitful implications to restrain this environmental degradation.Therefore,the first aim of current study is to analyze the significant factors that adversely affect the environment and have significant contribution in carbon emission,in case of China.China is the largest contributor of greenhouse gasses in the world,as mentioned by the Figure 6,which implies that China is responsible around 30%of total greenhouse gasses emission which is followed by United States that is responsible around 15%for the total emission.The main reason for this higher emission in China is the intensive use of oil and coal for electricity generation,transportation,industrial processing and urbanization etc.All the emission statistics are pointing to China for this alarming situation that the world is facing.Previously,the impact of economic growth,energy consumption,industrialization and urbanization has extensively discussed in the literature;most of them reported the positive and statistically significant impact of these factors on carbon emission,which concludes that higher economic growth,raise in energy consumption,industrial growth,increase in urban density are main factors of environmental degradation.It is interesting to speculate on what would happen if there is significant decline in economic growth,energy consumption and industrialization,of course,this can be a solution to decrease the carbon emission,but at what cost?By adopting this strategy,the industrial structure and economy will be collapsed.However,on the basis of empirical results,we attempt to propose the optimal solutions to mitigate the carbon emission,without affecting the industrial and economic progress.To propose the optimal solution,we focus on forest as it can help to control the carbon emission without affecting the economic growth.Previously the forestry scientists study the nexus between forest and carbon emission(e.g.Brown et al.2004,Achard et al.2004,Stern 2006,Routa et al.2011,Thuy et al.2014;Waheed et al.,2018),their focus is limited to examine the role of forest in carbon emission.Forestry studies do not link the economic activities with forest and carbon studies.On contrary,this study is the pioneer that contributes to the existing literature by following inclusions:firstly,as the common perception is that the increase in forest area can control the carbon emission in Pakistan(Waheed et al.,2018),however,we use econometric estimations to investigate the impacts of forest area on carbon emission for China.The main distinction of our study over previous forestry studies and Waheed et al.(2018)is to include the forest investment,as well as forest area.The main motivation for taking forest investment is follows:as forest is also known as a source of carbon emission which contributes in following ways:firstly,during the process of photosynthesis,plants use the carbon in the atmosphere to produce carbohydrates and oxygen.These carbohydrates are the stored in the biomass of trees such as leaves and roots are used by the plants to grow.However,during the decomposition,the carbohydrates are broken down into carbon and energy.In this process,the significant amount of carbon is realized back to the environment.Secondly,young trees are able to maintain their carbon balance,whereas,mature trees lose their carbon balance and turns to be a source of carbon emission.Thirdly,it has also been said that the forests are sometimes deliberately put on fire so the people living near can be forced to leave their homes and move to other places(Joyce,2017;Lathrop,2017;Griggs,2017).In fact,forest is the second largest contributor of carbon emission(van der Werf et al.,2009).Keeping in view the contrasting role of forest in carbon emission.we need to use two different measures of forest to examine the contribution of forest in carbon emission and how forest can be useful to control the carbon emission.The given proxies are forest area and forest investment,which is used to examine whether carbon emission can simply control by increasing the forest area or it requires proper forest investment to continuously manage the forest area.The use of forest area and forest investment will provide more comprehensive and useful insights to policy makers for planning widespread environmental policies.Secondly,after country level analysis,this study focuses on the provincial level analysis to investigate the impact of studied factors on carbon emission across the provinces.As there is heterogeneity among provinces on the basic of economic growth,industrialization,geographical positioning etc.,however,it is required to go for in depth analysis for provincial based policy recommendations.The third important contribution is to further divide the dataset in two sets according to the carbon emission policies.As the Chinese government form committee(NLCCC,National Leading Committee on Climate Change)in 2007 to form and implement carbon reduction policies,for this reason,we cut the data at 2007 and first set consists on data 1996 to 2006 which named pre-policy.Second dataset contains the data from 2007 to 2015 which is used for post-policy estimations.The motivation for policy base estimation is to examine whether NLCCC policy reforms are fruitful or it need further reforms and plans to control carbon emission.The study utilizes the unbalanced panel data for 30 provinces of China(due to non-availability of data for Tibet,Taiwan,Hong Kong and Macau has excluded from the final dataset).To avoid biased results,we have used log transformation to standardize the variables.The data of all independent variables are collected from National Bureau of Statistics of China(http://data.stats.gov.cn/english/).For carbon emission,we have used the well-known energy consumption based methodology of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC,2006).An analysis of the empirical estimations have reported that gross regional product has provided mix evidences,which indicated that impact of economic growth on carbon emission varies across provinces.Referencing results found from the econometric estimations,especially the spatial analysis,agricultural production are confirming negative and statistically significant in most of the full sample estimations,static,dynamic and spatial,which illustrate that agricultural production is not a source of carbon,but higher agricultural production support to reduce the carbon emission in China.The estimated coefficients of coal,oil,industrialization and urbanization have affirmed positive relationship with carbon emission,which implies that fossil fuel consumption,industrialization and urbanization are among the serious causes of higher carbon emission in China.Throwing light on the role of forest in carbon emission,the results of forest investment have witnessed negative and statistically significant impact on carbon emission,which imply that higher forest investment assists to control the carbon emission in China.On contrary,forest area has reported positive and significant relationship with carbon emission,illustrating that increase in forest area leads to increase the carbon emission.On the whole,the estimations of forest provide the significant insight that carbon emission can be mitigated by increasing forest investment rather increasing forest areas.All the above results show that the signs and significance of coefficients varies across estimated models and econometric techniques.The given point emphasis that we need to further analyze provincial analysis to examine the impact of each factor in every province.However,in general,the main purpose for tis provincial analysis is to check the role of forest in each province,so,we can conclude some significant results and able to provide some concrete policy implications that help to mitigate the carbon emission in Chinese provinces.The static and dynamic estimations of provincial analysis are reported in Appendix(see Table A-I to A-IV).The main focus of this study is on forest investment and forest area,however,the coefficients of forest investment and forest area are presented in Figure 9 and Figure 10,respectively.Figure 9 shows that the significant increase in forest investment can be a useful measure to control the carbon emission,except Sichuan,Yunnan.In short,the importance of forest investment cannot be neglected to control the carbon emission.On contrary,Figure 10 presents the coefficients of forest area,which indicating that the increase in forest area in Chinese provinces is not a healthy measure to mitigate the carbon emission.Qinghai,Sichuan,Shaanxi,Shanxi and Tianjin are proving that the increase in forest are in these provinces can boost the carbon emission and forest act as carbon source,instead of carbon sink.It is difficult to conclude the reason for Sichuan and Yunnan that why the increase in forest investment in these two provinces are still not helpful to control the carbon emission.But we can take support from Figure 11 to attempt the answer for this positive relationship,which demonstrates that the natural forest ratio is around 45%and it not an easy job to manage such kind of large natural forests and the government have to face many difficult to increase human activities.The local government has invested a large number of amount and attempting to engage the local community to manage the forests but still unsuccessful to attain fruitful results.This study further provides significant support to the policy debate within economists,industry organization,provincial and central policy makers.The best and most effective way to reduce the carbon dioxide emission is the change of energy mix from non-renewable to the renewable sources of energy.The government should improvise the farming methods to promote the use of modern technologies,usage of renewable energy for irrigation,modified seeds that have significant consequences to reduce the carbon emission.China should try to take some advance steps in transportation such as Netherlands use wind energy to power train and thereby reducing the oil or coal that would have been used.Additionally,government should play its role in ensuring that all industries have a treatment plant of carbon dioxide before they are licensed.The industries should use renewable sources of energy for their processing so as to minimize the carbon dioxide emitted.To counter this challenge of carbon emission,the local government in collaboration with the government should organize the training program on energy efficient usage and promote the energy efficient equipment at house hold level.In general,however,it is hard to escape from the conclusion that carbon emission can be controlled by increasing the forest investment e.g.afforestation,reforestation,forest management and cleaning activities that engage the local community to take care of the forest,provide incentives and rewards to local persons in their services to manage the forest etc.So,the central government,provincial and local authorities should take prompt actions to properly manage and regularly maintain the forests.In addition,the government should form strict laws of deforestation and issues the limited license of deforestation if necessary,but on the condition that they plant double the trees compared to the pulling out.Due to non-availability of data,it's become difficult to examine the estimations for a longer period of time.It further creates hurdle to use latest dynamic-heterogeneous estimations.However,I recommend that further research should be conducted by using the longer period of data that supports to provide valid results.For further research,firstly,the authors should use latest spatial techniques to counter check the significance of forest investment.Secondly,different proxies of forest investment and forest areas can be used to confirm the findings. |
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