The Effect Of Urbanization On Energy Consumption

China is in the rapid development stage of urbanization,the urbanization level in China has increased from 19.39%in 1980 to 55.61%in 2015.A number of workers have migrated from rural areas with low intensity of energy consumption to urban areas,the energy consumption have greatly increased.Traditional urbanization development mode,which is characterized by high-speed expansion and high energy consumption has brought a serious crisis to China’s energy safety,environment and climate.In the next few years,the process of urbanization in China will continue to develop rapidly.Energy security is the foundation for the realization of urbanization development goal.Therefore,the relationship between urbanization and energy consumption is of vital importance to China’s economic restructuring and steady growth in the coming years.The impact of urbanization on China’s energy consumption is explored based on theoretical and empirical analysis.The achievements of the paper are as follows:Firstly,this paper analyzes the mechanism of effect of urbanization on energy consumption.Urbanization influence energy consumption by four parts,namely,the change of production mode,the change of transportation,the change of construction and the change of life style.Combined Northam urbanization stage division and the Environmental Kuznets theory,the different effect of urbanization process on energy consumption is analyzed in the different development stage of urbanization.The speed of urbanization is slow in the early stage of urbanization.The scale of total energy consumption is small,and the influence of urbanization process on energy consumption is not obvious.Theoretical analysis proposes energy consumption will increase rapidly in the rapid progress of urbanization stage,under the joint action of scale expansion effect,enhanced flow effect and improve the quality of life effect.With the industrial structure upgrading,the technical level promotion,mechanism innovation and the resident’s living standard improvement,energy consumption will decrease gradually.Using the historical data of developed countries such as Britain,the US and Japan for international comparison,combined with input output analysis,it is confirmed that the scale expansion effect,especially the scale expansion of heavy chemical industry,plays a core role in the rapid growth of energy consumption.Secondly,based on STRIPAT model and the 1978-2015 quarterly time series data of China,long-term and short-term dynamic linkage relationship between urbanization process and energy consumption in China are examined.Using Cointegration analysis and ECM to confirm whether in long-term or short-term,per capita steel output and the level of urbanization are important factors affecting China’s energy consumption.The effect of urbanization on per capita energy consumption is the characteristics of invert"U" curve in the long-term run.The growth of per capita steel production would drive energy consumption to continue to increase.In the short term,urbanization has positive effect on energy consumption.The elasticity of per capita steel output to energy consumption is smaller than that in long term run.In addition,the change of income level has a positive impact on the fluctuation of energy consumption in China,and would exist for a long time.Energy consumption is sensitive to the fluctuation factors of urbanization level.Thirdly,the study explore the function of energy consumption in China from the perspective of urbanization by applying Semi-parametric panel data model based on 1990-2015 provincial panel data.The main findings are as follows:First of all,the impact of urbanization level on energy consumption is characterized by inverted "U:"curve after urbanization level more than 20.61%.On the other hand,empirical results demonstrated that there is a invert "U" relationship between the urbanization level and energy consumption in Mid-Eastern regions.The relationship between urbanization and energy consumption in the Western region is a typical "U" curve.Fourthly,adopting the PSTR model the influences of income level and industrialization process on the nonlinear relationship between urbanization and energy consumption is analysed in China.As income increases,the elasticities of urbanization with respect to energy consumption would increase rapidly and would remain constant in the future.During the process of industrialization,the elasticity of urbanization to energy consumption will continue to increase.When the level of income and industrialization in the western region is low,the process of urbanization will promote the reduction of energy consumption,urbanization is negative to energy consumption elasticity.However,with the growth of income level and the process of industrialization,the process of urbanization will promote the continuous increase of energy consumption.Finally,this paper puts forward policy recommendations to energy conservation and energy supply in the process of urbanization in China from two aspects:From the urbanization development mode persperctive,big cities should change development model changing from scale expansion to connotation enhancement.The middle and small towns can realize the new urbanization development mode through the urban layout of the low carbon target,the construction of energy-saving facilities and the promotion of intelligent transportation.From the two angles of "gglomeration" and"conserving",the Western region promotes the development mode of intensive urbanization according to local conditions.From the perspective of the demand and supply of energy,China should reduce the growth rate of energy demand through the optimization of industrial structure,technological progress and lifestyle changes.At the same time,the paper put forward the development of renewable and clean energy to improve energy supply capacity.