An Empirical Study On The Carbon Intensity And Its Influencing Factors In China

Climate change threatens the survival and development of mankind,it has become a common challenge for the world.The greenhouse gas emissions,especially a large amounts of carbon dioxide emissions has become the main cause of global climate change.The international community has called on all countries in the world to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.Since the reform and opening-up,China's rapid economic growth as well as discharge a large amounts of carbon dioxide gas,China has become the largest emitters of carbon dioxide in the world.Thus,the Chinese government is also facing a variety of public pressure to reduce emissions from the international community.As a responsible countries,Chinese government has made a public commitment to the world: China's carbon dioxide emissions intensity in 2020 will be decreased by 40-45% than in 2005,carbon dioxide emissions intensity in 2030 will be decreased by 60-65% than in 2005.To achieve these goals in the future,it will face many difficulties and challenges for China.The research of this paper is based on the international background of global climate change and greenhouse gas emission reduction,and in combination with Chinese government's commitment to the 2020 and 2030 carbon intensity reduction target.I conducted a systematic study for China's carbon intensity and carbon emissions and other issues by the factor decomposition method,measurement and inspection method and so on.The main work of this paper includes the following aspects:Firstly,based on the identical transformation of Kaya identity,the carbon intensity of China is divided into energy intensity,energy consumption structure,industrial structure and other factors.Then,by using the calculation methods of the IPCC and the calculation caliber of the national development and reform commission,I estimated carbon dioxide emissions in China during 1980-2014 and calculated the carbon intensity.The estimates show that China's carbon dioxide emissions showed a rapid growth trend in general,China's carbon dioxide emissions increased significantly after 2002.China's carbon intensity overall showed a downward trend,but in 2003,2004 and 2005 showed a rebound.The accelerated development of heavy industry in China in 2002 led to a substantial increase in carbon dioxide emissions after 2002,as well as the main reasons for the carbon intensity rebound in 2003,2004 and 2005.Secondly,this paper uses cointegration analysis,error correction model,impulse response function and variance decomposition to research the carbon intensity of China and its influence factors.This paper shows that in the long term,the proportion of coal consumption,energy intensity and the proportion of industrial are positively correlated with carbon intensity.Energy intensity had the greatest influence on carbon intensity change,the second is the proportion of industrial,the influence of the proportion of coal consumption is minimum.In the short term under the condition of keeping other conditions unchanged,the proportion of coal consumption,energy intensity and carbon intensity are positively correlated,the proportion of industrial and carbon intensity is negatively correlated.Energy intensity has the greatest influence on carbon intensity change,the second is the proportion of coal consumption,the influence of the proportion of industrial is minimum.In the short term,when the factors affecting the change of carbon dioxide emission intensity in China deviate from the long-run equilibrium,they can return to the equilibrium state at a faster rate.Thirdly,in this paper,scenario prediction method is used to set the situation of China's economic and social development in the future.On the basis of this,the carbon intensity of different scenarios in China was predicted.Based on the target of carbon intensity reduction in China in 2020 and 2030,the carbon intensity targets in different scenarios were compared and analyzed.The results show that the economic growth scenario,China can only achieve the primary goal of 2020 carbon intensity decreased 40% compared to 2005,can't achieve a higher target of 45% and 2030 carbon intensity decline.In energy-saving scenarios,China can achieve a goal of 2020 reduction in carbon intensity,but the carbon intensity of 2030 can only achieve the goal of 60% lower than 2005,can't complete the higher goal of down 65% than 2005.Only in low-carbon scenario,China can achieve all targets of carbon intensity decline.On the basis of scenario analysis,I have carried a comparative study about decoupling state between carbon emission and economic growth under different scenarios in China.Research shows that decoupling degree of low-carbon scenario is the highest,followed by energy-saving scenarios,economic growth scenario is the lowest.Fourthly,Based on the practice of low carbon economic and social development in the European Union,the United States and Japan.From eight aspects of saving energy,optimizing energy structure and adjusting industrial structure and so on,we put forward the policy suggestions to reduce carbon intensity and carbon emissions in China.Finally,this paper points out the deficiencies and the future research direction by summarizing the full text of the research conclusions.