The Influence Of Industrial Structure Optimization On Carbon Emission

As early as 2008, China surpassed USA in carbon emissions and became the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. In recent years, increasing extreme weather conditions also emphasize the importance of carbon reduction. As major regions of industrial productivity forces, provinces with the strongest manufacturing capacity in eastern and central regions contribute over sixty percents of carbon emissions. Therefore, to find out carbon emission impact factors in these areas, and thus to find ways to reduce carbon emissions are of great practical significance. This paper intends to analyze the impact of economic structure optimization on carbon emissions.To begin with, this paper introduces the evolution and upgrading of economic structure theory, low-carbon economy theory and studies on the relationships between economic structure optimization and carbon emissions. Based on these studies, this paper utilizes rationalization of economic structure and upgrading of economic structure to measure the level of changes in the economic structure. And this paper also analyzes and summarizes the of how economic structure changes impact on carbon emissions, namely, rationalization of economic structure makes an influence by scale effect, structure effect, and upgrading of economic structure by scale effect, technology effect and market effect. Furthermore, this paper carries out empirical research to analyze the relationship between economic structure changes and carbon emissions in these 15 provinces:(1) Based on the analysis of current situation, as a whole economic structure in these areas tends to be more reasonable, the level of economic structure upgrading has increased, and carbon emissions show a rising trend while its growth rate slows down; (2) Based on the panel data of these 15 provinces from 2000 to 2013, this paper first introduces the variables of economic structure changes to the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC), and sets an econometric model. Then, using the generalized least squares method, the paper analyzes the relationships between these two factors. The results show that both the rationalization of economic structure and upgrading of economic structure can reduce local carbon emissions directly, but also indirectly reduce carbon emissions by weakening the impact of economic growth on carbon emissions. Meanwhile, the upgrading of economic structure seems to play a more important role.Finally, based on the research above, the paper proposes policy recommendations of reducing carbon emissions in China’s 15 provinces with the strongest manufacturing capacity.