Research On The Influence Degree And Process Of Fixed-asset Investment On Carbon Emissions In China

Global warming has become an environmental problem of great concern in the world,it is caused by the increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases,and the main component of greenhouse gases is carbon dioxide.At present,China emits more carbon dioxide than other countries in the world,and it is China’s future development goal to achieve low carbon emissions while ensuring economic development.Economic growth is the main factor driving the increase of carbon emissions,and the economic growth is the result of a series of factors such as investment,among which investment is an important driving force of economic growth.Therefore,as an important part of investment,fixed-asset investment has an extremely important impact on carbon emissions.Especially for China,since the reform and opening up,a large amount of fixed-asset investment has been used in infrastructure construction,which has led to a surge in energy consumption and carbon emissions.The existing research lacks in-depth thinking on the mechanism of influencing factors of carbon emissions,ignores the impact of fixed-asset investment on carbon emissions,and rarely excavates the relationship between fixed-asset investment and carbon emissions.On the basis of the existing research,aiming at the shortcomings,this paper constructs a research framework of the influence of fixed-asset investment on carbon emissions.On the one hand,this paper analyzes the influence degree of fixed-asset investment on carbon emissions.On the other hand,this paper explores the influence process of fixed-asset investment on carbon emissions.Based on these two main lines,this paper takes China’s three industries as the research object and launches a series of studies.Aiming at the problem of the influence degree of fixed-asset investment on carbon emissions,this paper first applies the Generalized Divisia Index Method(GDIM)to construct six-dimensional factor decomposition models of three industries’ carbon emissions in China,and further extends them to continue to construct ten-dimensional factor decomposition models of carbon emissions,quantifies the contribution of each factor,including fixed-asset investment,to carbon emissions under the two decomposition frameworks.Through the comparative analysis with other factors,this paper reveals the important impact of fixed-asset investment on carbon emissions in China’s three industries.GDIM is a new index decomposition technique,which overcomes the limitations of existing index decomposition methods.GDIM extends the analytical base of Kaya identity,allows to include multiple quantitative and relative factors at the same time,and considers the factors’ interconnections.Although GDIM has started to receive attention due to its advantages,relatively few research has been conducted in the field of carbon emissions.In these few relevant studies,the effects of ten factors on carbon emissions,such as fixed-asset investment,industrial value added,labor force,energy consumption,and labor productivity,have not been taken into account simultaneously.In addition,these existing studies also ignore the possibility of differences in the contributions of factors affecting carbon emissions under the low-dimensional factor decomposition framework and highdimensional factor decomposition framework.This paper makes up for the shortcomings of existing studies,quantifies the impact of various factors on carbon emissions more comprehensively and accurately,and reveals the important contribution of fixed-asset investment among the influencing factors of carbon emissions in China’s three industries.Aiming at the problem of the influence process of fixed-asset investment on carbon emissions,this paper divides this problem into two sub-problems:(1)The hysteresis and contemporaneous relationships between carbon emissions and fixed-asset investment;(2)The chain impact of fixed-asset investment on carbon emissions.With regard to the first sub-problem,on the one hand,this paper uses econometric methods such as Granger causality test based on VAR model to analyze the hysteresis relationships between fixed-asset investment and carbon emissions in China’s three industries.This paper uses the non-linear Granger causality test proposed by Diks and Panchenko to improve and supplement the results of the traditional linear Granger causality test.On the other hand,this paper employs Directed Acyclic Graph(DAG)analysis to identify the contemporaneous relationships between fixed-asset investment and carbon emissions in China’s three industries.Due to the limitation of research methods,the contemporaneous relationships between fixed-asset investment and carbon emissions have been little reported in the literature.With regard to the second sub-problem,this paper establishes the state space models,and performs the serial multiple mediation test to analyze the chain impact of fixed-asset investment on carbon emissions in China’s three industries.The existing studies on the relationship between investment and carbon emissions,the relationship between economic growth and carbon emissions,and the relationship between energy consumption and carbon emissions have produced a great deal of achievements.However,there are few studies to analyze the chain impact of fixed-asset investment on carbon emissions through economic growth and energy consumption.This paper extends the research perspective on the factors influencing carbon emissions,quantifies the influence degree of fixed-asset investment on carbon emissions,and reveals the influence process of fixed-asset investment on carbon emissions.This paper provides relevant theoretical support for the formulation of investment policies and energy conservation and emission reduction policies in China,so as to improve investment efficiency and energy efficiency in the process of fixed-asset investment,take the road of green investment,and ensure equal emphasis on economic development and low carbon emissions.In addition,by analyzing the differential impact of fixed-asset investment on carbon emissions in China’s three industries,this paper can help policy makers to formulate investment policies and energy conservation and emission reduction policies suitable for different industries in China,so that each industry can give full play to its advantages,and further promote China to achieve green and low-carbon development.