Yunnan Province, The Development Of Low-carbon Economy Path Study

In2003, the UK government proposed the concept of low-carbon economy gaining the consensus of many countries. From the literature, low-carbon economy can be defined as:a pattern of win-win economic development which can achieve both social development and ecological environment protection under the guidance of the concept of sustainable development. The way to realize is to utmostly minimize the consumption of high-carbon energy like coal and oil, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions through technical innovation, system innovation, industrial restructuring, and exploitation of new energy resources etc. At present, China becomes the major carbon emitter in the world, and as a developing country with her own responsibility, China has joined the corresponding international organization to control carbon emissions. One of the main sources of carbon emissions is energy consumption. From the perspective of practice, now there are two main ways to achieve carbon reduction in China:the adjustment of industrial structure and the improvement of efficiency of energy consumption. As one of the low-carbon pilot provinces, Yunnan possesses plenty of energy and mineral resources. However, the abundant energy storage also means tremendous energy consumption and carbon emission. Therefore, it makes sense to develop a low-carbon economy by analyzing the effects of energy consumption based on evolution of industrial structure in Yunnan.Therefore, this paper analyzes the advantage and necessity of the development of low carbon economy in Yunnan province at first from the aspect of location features, resource endowment, economic status, and then compares development level of low-carbon economy among Yunnan and the other four low-carbon pilot provinces by constructing a level measurement index to further discussion. After that changes of industrial structure and energy consumption structure of the calendar years in Yunnan have been investigated specifically from the view of the industrial point. In order to give example to structure adjustment, we estimate the industry of high carbon emissions by computing the carbon emissions of industrial sector. Finally, from the view of industrial structure, this paper uses the way of empirical analysis to analyze the carbon emissions effect of adjustment of industrial structure.Based on the above-mentioned analysis, the paths of development of low-carbon economy have been raised as following:Optimizing the industrial structure, developing low carbon agriculture, low carbon industry and modern service industry; Improving the production efficiency and energy resources utilization, promoting the exploitation of clean energy; Giving full play to the potential of carbon sequestration, developing the forestry of carbon sequestration. As a consequence, government should make full use of fiscal policy and tax policy to give policy and financial support to the low-carbon enterprise in Yunnan. Furthermore, government should also increase the investment of low-carbon economy in order to promote the development of low-carbon economy in Yunnan.