An Empirical Study Of The Relationship Between FDI,Foreign Trade And The Intensity Of China’s Carbon Dioxide Emissions

Since reform and opening, Chinese government implements the basic national policy of internal reform and opening to outside. With the coastal cities open, large amounts of FDI flow into China, and the scale of trade has expanded rapidly. China has become the world’s first one as the host country of FDI, the first one of foreign trading nation in2012. FDI and foreign trade have made a great contribution to China’s economic growth, employment, technological progress and industrial restructuring. Although the influence of FDI and foreign trade on China’s economy is mainly positive, they have caused some negative effects on China’s environment. China’s economy is in a stage of rapid industrialization and urbanization; the carbon dioxide would have been more prominent. In this case, the problem of carbon emissions caused by FDI and foreign trade cannot be ignored. At the Copenhagen climate conference, the Chinese government promised to reduce unit of GDP’s carbon dioxide emissions at40%-45%little than2005’sin2020. The "11th five-year plan" carbon reduction target is20%, but only reached19.1%. Therefore, the carbon reduction situation is still grim. Researching the relationship between FDI, foreign trade and carbon dioxide emission intensity is significant. It has important reference value for our government to develop low carbon economy, improve the environment and make the sustainable growth of policy. Therefore this research has a significant practical meaning.This paper selects China’s provinces relevant data about FDI, import and export trade and others from1995to2011, and analyzes the relationship between FDI, foreign trade and the intensity of carbon dioxide emission. Firstly, using the time series to analyze the scale effect and structure effect and technical effect of carbon dioxide emission; secondly, using the cross-section panel data to discuss the effects of FDI, foreign trade on carbon dioxide emission intensity from a regional perspective; thirdly, considering the interaction among various regions, using spatial panel data model to analyze how FDI and foreign trade effect on carbon dioxideemissions intensity; finally, according to the results of empirical analysis,we to puts forward some suggestions about China’s carbon emissions.The paper is divided into six parts. The first part introduces the background and significance of the research simply, and reviews the relevant literature at home and abroad, regards them as the theoretical basis for this paper to establish the empirical model. The second part makes a statistical analysis of FDI, Foreign Trade and carbon dioxide emission status from the total and regional perspective. This third part analyzes the effects of carbon dioxide emission. The author decomposes the effect of carbon dioxide emission into scale, structural and technical effect, then analyzes the three effects that FDI and Foreign Trade on China’s carbon dioxide emission. The fouth part analyzes therelationship between FDI, Foreign Trade and carbon dioxide emission intensity using panel data from a regional perspective. The fifth part uses spatial econometric methods to analyze the spatial correlation of carbon dioxide emission intensity. Thesixth part is the conclusion and policy recommendations.The main conclusions include that the carbon dioxide emission has a significant increase and it will be difficult to achieve carbon reduction targets; there are differences on carbon dioxide emissions intensity of each region; regional carbon dioxide emission intensity exists spatial correlation; FDI possible can reduce the carbon dioxide emissions intensity; The trade liberalization has an impact on carbon dioxide emissions intensity. Major recommendations include that we should improve the level of FDI and improve the regional pattern of FDI; we should optimize the structure of export and import products; to achieve sustainable economic development, we should advocate green consumption and production; we should strengthen coordination development between regional.This paper has some innovations. The author uses the spatial panel model to analyze thespatial correlation between FDI, Foreign Trade and carbon dioxide emission intensity. Then, the author selects export and import as the trade variables, and overcome the deficiency of other scholars who consider only exports or imports.At the same time; the author analyze the structure, scale and technology effects of FDI and Foreign Trade on carbon emission.