China's Carbon Emissions Influence Key Driver Analysis And Carbon Emissions Prediction Research In The Future

According to "World Energy Statistics2009" released by International Energy Agency (IEA), China had surpassed the U.S. as the world’s largest CO2emitter in2007. As a responsible country in the world, China is trying to take into account of the environmental benefits while contributing to the global economic development. In2007, China’s National Climate Change Program announced that the growth of carbon emissions would be zero or even negative in the middle of this century; in2009, the Chinese government promised to decrease carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP in2020by40%to45%compared to2005. To achieve these goals, we need to first understand the key factors driving the growth of China’s carbon emissions in recent years and their influence, then predict the trend of China’s future carbon emissions so as to combat climate change.In this paper, the influence of five key drivers affecting the carbon dioxide emissions in China between2000and2010was analyzed by the input-output analysis and structural decomposition analysis. The results showed that the total production related CO2emissions in2010was increased by143.34%compared with2000, changing from3.641billion tons to8.86billion tons. The final demand structure was the main factor during this period, with other factors remaining constant, its contribution to the growth of carbon dioxide emissions amount to85.52%; per capita GDP and the economic production structure contributed55.39%and16.69%respectively; the carbon emissions intensity offset growth by18.9%; the population effect could be ignored. Secondly, we predicted that in2035China’s carbon emissions would arrive its peak; between2035and2040carbon emissions would decline while from2040to2050carbon emissions would show a slight growth trend which alerted the insufficient capacity of reduction measures. As for the driving factors’influence, GDP per capita and the final structure of demand were demonstrated to play a significant role in increasing carbon dioxide emissions over time; the offset effect of economic production structure would be very strong at the beginning then gradually weaken; the impact of the emission intensity strengthened with time to become the main constraint factor. Thus, with the transformation of economic production structure together with technology innovation, the increase of carbon dioxide emissions could be greatly offset. Finally, according to influence of the drivers, four specific policies were recommended:emphasize the quality of economic development rather than the speed of development, to achieve "good" before "fast"; change from relying on investment, export-driven to consumption, investment and export-driven coordination; change from secondary industry serving as the primary to three types of industries jointly driving economics as well as change from relying on the material input to the transformation of technological progress and management innovation.