Research On Driving Mechanism And Human Well-being Of Rural Resident’s Clean Energy Use In China

Energy is an important material guarantee related to the national economy and people’s livelihood,the harmonious development of society and economy and people’s well-being.Under the background of global energy resources shortage,as the world’s largest energy consumer,China is facing increasingly severe challenges and pressures of energy security.Strengthening the transformation of clean and low-carbon energy based on the basic national conditions has become one of the important measures to ensure China’s energy security.Rural energy is an important part of China’s energy system.Clean energy reserves are abundant in rural areas in China.However,the utilization scale is small and mostly extensive and inefficient at the present stage,which is not conducive to the high-quality development of rural energy and promotes the construction of national green energy system,but also contrary to the nature of agricultural and rural modernization.Therefore,Under the framework of the national “30·60 Double Carbon Target”,exploring the transformation of rural residents’ energy use to cleanliness is not only an inherent requirement to ensure China’s energy security,but also an important means to empower rural revitalization.Rural revitalization is led by farmers.The key to this transformation lies in guiding rural residents to participate widely,and stimulating the willingness of rural residents to actively replace traditional energy with clean energy.Therefore,it is necessary to pay attention to the key factors that affect the behavior of rural residents using clean energy in this process,and to clarify what kind of utility clean energy application can bring to rural residents,and whether it meets the people’s needs for a better life.Since the reform and opening up,a review of the main policies and related laws and regulations on clean energy in rural China can be observed that although the policies and regulations in different periods have differences in policy direction,emphasis and development objects,the state has continued to pay attention to rural energy issues and gradually take clean energy construction as an important direction of rural energy development.Under the guidance of policies and regulations,the energy consumption structure in rural China began to show diversification and cleanliness trend,but traditional energy still occupies a dominant position.Based on the above observations,this study attempts to explore why clean energy is not widely used in the countryside under the background of the country vigorously promoting the transformation of rural energy cleanliness? What factors affect the behavior of rural residents’ use of clean energy,and what are the specific driving mechanisms? Furthermore,considering that the main contradiction of Chinese society has been transformed into "the contradiction between the people’s increasingly increasing needs for a better life and the unbalanced and inadequate development",when the state has taken "leading the people to seek happiness" as an important policy goal for constructing a new journey,it is necessary to analyze whether the popularization and application of clean energy is consistent with the needs of rural residents,does the choice of using clean energy mean increased level of well-being for rural residents?How to explain the underlying mechanism? Are there any differences for the rural residents with different characteristics and different regions? To sum up,this research mainly addresses the aforementioned questions from two perspectives,i.e.,what factors will influence the application of clean energy among rural residents in China and what are the benefits of clean energy application to the rural residents.The main contents and conclusions of this research are as follows:First,taking the tracking survey data of “Hundred Villages and Thousand Households”Rural Revitalization in Jiangxi Province as a basis,a binary Probit and an ordered Probit model are employed to measure the driving mechanism of clean energy use among rural residents in China,respectively,based on “whether to use clean energy” and “clean energy use intensity”.The results show that: firstly,the modern mechanism,ability mechanism and part of the identity mechanism in the “Family Endowment Effect”,as well as the availability of clean energy in the “Proximity Effect”,will have a significant influence on the clean energy use behavior of rural residents;secondly,the driving force is from strong to weak,in the order of clean energy availability,ability mechanism,modern mechanism and identity mechanism;thirdly,the results of the driving mechanism analysis are not affected by energy use channels such as cooking,heating and bathing;finally,the key to driving the rural elderly to use clean energy lies in the ability mechanism and external transportation conditions.Second,this research analyzes the impact of clean energy application on rural residents’ health well-being.Taking the two-period panel data of rural female samples from China Family Panel Studies(CFPS)in 2014 and 2016 as a basis,the propensity score matching-double difference method(PSM-DID)is used to empirically test the influence of clean energy use on the health of rural females who are the main cooking subjects in rural household cooking process.The results show that: firstly,the use of clean energy in the cooking process can significantly improve the health of rural females;secondly,the positive health effects are greater for middle-aged and elderly people,illiterate people,and rural females in Northeast China;thirdly,the use of clean energy in cooking does not have a positive effect on rural male samples who are not primarily responsible for the family cooking;finally,the baseline results are excluded from the influence of other events in the same period,and the endogeneity problem is solved.Third,this research analyzes the impact of clean energy application on rural residents’ economic well-being.Based on the county-level panel statistics from 2011 to 2018,taking the policy of the first batch of photovoltaic poverty alleviation launched by the state in 2017 as the natural experimental background,the double difference method(DID)is used to evaluate the economic well-being of rural residents in China in relation to clean energy use.The results show that: firstly,the use of clean energy will bring significant economic effects to rural residents;secondly,the economic effects come from “own posts + public posts” double employment opportunities,government financial subsidies,power generation and grid connection income,village collective periodic dividends,and “photovoltaic + industry”development models;thirdly,residents in western counties,autonomous counties and deeply poverty-stricken areas with strong sunshine and lack of employment options will gain greater economic benefits;fourthly,the “cost-benefit” quantitative calculation results further prove the reliability of resident economic well-being;finally,the endogenous problems caused by the concurrent policy and omitted variables are excluded,and the pre-policy is considered.Last,this research analyzes the impact of clean energy application on rural residents’ subjective well-being.Based on the China Family Panel Survey(CFPS)from 2010 to 2018,the same experimental background as research content three was adopted and the double difference(DID)method was used to analyze whether the use of clean energy in China has an effect on the subjective well-being of residents.The results showed that: firstly,the use of clean energy in rural China can positively enhance the subjective well-being of residents;secondly,the indirect mechanism of clean energy use on the subjective well-being of residents mainly comes from "the improvement of comprehensive economic effect,the enhancement of future confidence and the improvement of regional air pollution level";thirdly,middle-aged groups,illiterate groups and working groups are more likely to gain greater subjective well-being,while gender is not a key factor;finally,to solve the endogenous problem,and to eliminate the interference of pre-policy and individual factors on the baseline results again.In summary,the research overall reveals how to adjust the rural energy structure based on rural residents and obtain not only the longitudinal conclusion of “how to promote use and what are the benefits of use”,but also a thorough horizontal analysis of “what are the benefits of use”.Facing the future rural energy development pattern,it believes that it is crucial to continuously promote the transformation of rural energy use to clean energy,so that clean energy will benefit the people in a sustainable way,but it is also necessary to pay attention to the differences in the well-being of different groups and regional residents,and to implement the intergenerational fairness and social fairness of rural clean energy use.