Eu Consumption Of Resources And Economic Development Relationship

China's economy encountered a bottleneck of resources and China is in urging need to learn from foreign countries and regions about how to coordinate resource use and development of economy. European Union (EU) has much experience in coordinating resource use and economic development it is very important for China to study EU and learn from it about this area.Based on former study at home and abroad, this thesis takes EU as a whole and applies material flow analysis (MFA) and reduction analysis to study relationship of resource use and economic development in EU. The thesis will also explore relevant policies and measures of EU about coordination of resource use and economic development, aimed to provide some suggestions to China. The whole text is divided into four chapters:Chapter 1 is the basic theory of this thesis. First, this thesis introduce theory progress about material flow analysis and relationship resource use and economic development, and then review research literature on applies of material flow analysis to reduction analysis which is the starting point of analysis of this thesis.Chapter 2 is the analyzing basis of the thesis. The thesis analyses scale, structure and change of material flow in EU economic system from the year 1970 to 2004. General and detailed analysis of EU material flow shows that: 1970-2004, average per capita domestic material consumption (DMC) showed little change but the growth of population and GDP still made the total material consumption of EU greatly increase; EU mainly rely on domestic resources, but foreign resources plays increasingly important role in EU economic development; minerals are major materials in material extraction and consumption of EU, but chemical fuels are the most important materials in import material flow; there is an obvious trend of substitution of relative clean energy (oil, natural gas) of relative pollution energy (coal).Chapter 3 is the core of this thesis. Based on previous chapter, thesis applies material flow analysis to the reduction analysis of EU economic system, which reveals that: material efficiency of EU increased year by year, indicating a relative material reduction; although in most years, rebound effect brought by increasing size of the economy surpass reduction effect brought by improved material efficiency which made DMC increased, yet goal of relative reduction is achieved if the whole time period is divided into 4 with 10 years as an interval; trend of material reduction is caused by the improvement of material efficiency.Chapter 4 tries to explain the analyzing output of chapter 3 from the point of policies and measures of EU. The thesis divides the whole progress into 3 periods: the resource crisis phase (1950-1972); comprehensive use of resources and attention to sustainable development phase (1973-1991); overall legislation and promotion of concerted action phase (since 1992). Research shows that: the progress of coordination of consumption of resources and economic development anatomizes trend of material reduction since 1970. This chapter also sums up the experience of EU and provides some policy recommendations based on China's current situation.