Research On China's Regional Green Economy Development Efficiency And Carbon Emissions Reduction Path

China has been an active participant in mitigating global climate change since the launch of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992.At the Paris Climate Change Conference in 2015,Chinese government has committed to peak its carbon dioxide emissions(CO₂emissions)by 2030.However,China is still in the critical period of industrialization and urbanization.Besides the challenge of low economic growth,China has also faced the increasing pressure of carbon emissions reduction.Recently,the concepts of‘ecological civilization',‘low-carbon development'and‘beautiful China'have been put forward successively.The green and low-carbon development mode offers a brilliant idea for solving the contradiction between economic growth and environmental protection.Therefore,evaluating the current situation of carbon emissions and identifying reasonable reduction paths are very important for accelerating China's low-carbon transformation and achieving the goal of carbon emissions peak as soon as possible.Given on the above background,based on the theories of sustainable development,low-carbon economy and externality as well as the foreign practices of green economy development,this dissertation explores a series of problems of Chinese regional green economy development,including the analysis on the decoupling relationship between carbon emissions and economic growth,green total factor efficiency assessment,carbon emissions prediction and carbon emissions allowance allocation.The aim of this dissertation is to provide effective policy recommendations for realizing Chinese government's carbon emissions reduction commitment and mitigating global climate change.The main work and conclusions of this dissertation are summarized as follows:(1)Research on the decoupling relationship between carbon emissions and economic growth and its driving factors.This dissertation uses Tapio decoupling index to investigate the decoupling relationship between carbon emissions and economic growth of China's 30 regions from 2001 to 2017,and then analyzes the driving factors of decoupling status of carbon emissions based on Logarithmic Mean Division Index(LMDI)decomposition method.The results show that the relationship between carbon emissions and economic growth of China has experienced a gradual improvement from expansive decoupling to weak decoupling,and the decoupling state of China's carbon emissions will be kept stabilized in the future.Among the driving factors,energy intensity effect was the main reason for curbing total carbon emissions in China,while economic activity effect shown an opposite influence.Additionally,the influence of both energy structure effect and population size effect on carbon emissions was limited.(2)Research on the measurement of green total factor productivity and its decomposition.Based on the assumption of weak disposability,this dissertation applies an aggregate direction distance function method to decompose the overall inefficiency of Chinese regions into technical inefficiency and structural inefficiency,and the later component,which captures the inefficiency due to resource misallocation among regions,is further divided into mix and scale elements.The proposed approach extends the existing efficiency evaluation method.The results show that the overall green total factor productivity has been improved from 2001 to 2017,and the main source of inefficiency was structural inefficiency.For the eastern area,improving the efficiency of resource allocation among regions can effectively improve the green total factor productivity,while the central and western areas should focus on adopting advanced technologies.(3)Research on carbon emissions prediction and peak paths of carbon emissions.This dissertation first identifies the influencing factors of carbon emissions by applying STIRPAT model,and then uses scenario analysis to predict the carbon emissions of Chinese 30 regions from 2018 to 2040 based on scenario analysis.This is a bottom-up method that used to investigate whether China can reach its peak of carbon emissions in 2030.The results show that under the extensive development scenario,baseline scenario and green development scenario,the peak times of China's carbon emissions are 2033,2031 and 2029,respectively,and the peak values are 19.506 billion tons,17.428 billion tons and 15.707 billion tons,respectively.Therefore,only the green development scenario satisfies the commitment of peaking China's carbon emissions by 2030.(4)Research on the impacts of carbon emissions trading on economic development and carbon emissions reduction.Based on Data Envelopment Analysis(DEA),this dissertation evaluates the potential gains and carbon emissions reduction under two environmental regulations,i.e.,command-and-control and carbon emissions trading system environmental regulations.This dissertation is the first to verify the necessity of establishing carbon emissions trading system from the perspective of China's carbon emissions peak.The results show that,compared with the command-and-control environmental regulation,carbon emissions trading system can increase more potential gains and reduce carbon emissions simultaneously.However,due to the negative externality of the market trading,a part of the potential carbon emissions reduction will be squeezed out.Furthermore,the results reveal that the establishment of the national carbon emissions trading market is conducive to promoting the arrival of the peak time and reducing the peak value of carbon emissions,especially in the extensive development scenario and baseline scenario.Through these systematic researches,this dissertation finds that there is much room for potential improvement in China's carbon emissions performance,which also shows significant regional differences.Furthermore,optimizing energy consumption structure,improving energy efficiency,promoting the upgrading of industrial structure and establishing the national carbon emissions trading system should be considered as the main methods for reducing carbon emissions in the future.This dissertation contributes to the existing literature mainly in the following aspects:Firstly,this dissertation evaluates the current situation and driving factors of China's carbon emissions from the perspectives of carbon emissions decoupling and green total factor productivity.Especially,this dissertation establishes an aggregate direction distance function to identify the structural inefficiency caused by resource misallocation.Secondly,this dissertation combines STIRPAT model with scenario analysis to forecast the trends of China's carbon emissions at the regional level,and finds that only more strict energy and industrial policies can ensure timely completion of the carbon emissions peak commitment.Finally,this dissertation uses DEA methods to simulate the impacts of different environmental policies on China's economy and carbon emissions,and verifies the important role of the establishment of carbon emissions trading system in promoting the realization of carbon emissions peak.