China’s Environmental Policy, The Reduction Of Carbon Dioxide Emission, And The Selection Of Low-carbon Economic Development Path

The reduction of carbon dioxide emission is one of the hot topics in theinternational community now. Governments have to take relevant measures to reachtheir carbon emission reduction targets. Our country has brought the reduction ofcarbon dioxide emission in our long-term social development plan, and is trying todeal with the contradiction between economic development and environment issueseffectively through environmental polices. Firstly, this paper summarizes the theory ofenvironmental policy which relates to economics and ecology, laying the theoreticalfoundation for the full text’s analysis. Secondly, this paper designs a theoreticalmodel to analyze environment policy’s action mechanism on the reduction ofcarbon dioxide emission through the model’s decomposition. Thirdly, thispaper establishes a two-step regression model and makes an empirical analysisof China’s environmental policy’s role on the reduction of carbon dioxideemission with some indicator dates from1995to2011. Finally, some correspondingpolicy recommendations for our country’s selection of low-carbon economicdevelopment path are put forward.The results shows that:(1) In the context of economic growth, thechanges of China’s carbon dioxide emission from1995-2011come fromeconomic scale’s effect, industrial structure’s effect, technological progress’seffect and environmental policy’s effect. The economic scale’s effect leadscarbon dioxide emission to increase, but industrial structure’s effect,technological progress’s effect and environmental policy’s effect tend toreduce carbon dioxide emission and consumption of resources, showing apositive effect to environment.(2) In the stages of1995-2002,2002-2007and2007-2011, China’s industrial structure adjustment is not for theenvironmental factors, but it reduces carbon dioxide emission to some extentalso. Technological progress’s effect is always the main contributor of thereduction of carbon dioxide emission but with a weakening role. The increasinglyprominent role of environmental policy’s effect on the reduction of carbon dioxide emission shows that the governance capacity of China’s environmental policy isincreasing steadily.(3) The environmental policy’s effect is mainly due to theinvestment on environmental pollution control. However, environmentalpolicy’s structure and technology are not effective on the reduction of carbondioxide emission, which needs to be further improved and enhanced.