Study On The Relations Between Energy Consumption,Economic Growth And Carbon Emissions Of Xinjiang

With the development of the world economy, energy has gradually become the important material basis of economic development of human society. However, the expansion of energy consumption is inevitable along with the rapid economic growth, which leads to a huge amount of greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse effect caused by excessive carbon emission is a severe challenge facing us. Governments and academia around the world have drawn much attention to how to reduce carbon emissions. Xinjiang located in the northwest frontier region of China, enjoying rich natural resources such as coal, petroleum, natural gas and some other new energy resources, plays an important role in China’s energy construction. However, Xinjiang is an underdeveloped area, and its economic growth mainly depends on high investment and high energy-consuming, which is an extensive economy growth mode. Against this background, to study the relationship between Xinjiang energy consumption, economic growth and carbon emissions has become an important subject in Xinjiang on taking the path of low carbon economy and sustainable development.This paper taking Xinjiang as a research object collects the data of energy consumption, economic growth and carbon emissions from1985to2011in Xinjiang. From the analysis of its current situation, this paper draws conclusions that all this three aspects appeared an increasing tendency in these years. In terms of energy consumption, coal makes up the largest part of all energy consumption in Xinjiang. Energy efficiency in economic growth is not high. As to economic growth, the development patterns of three-industry structure in Xinjiang tend to be like this: primary industry<tertiary industry<secondary industry, showing an extensive economic growth model with high-involvement, high energy consumption, less economic benefit and deteriorative environment. In the respect of carbon emissions, there is a decline of carbon emissions in Xinjiang in recent years. However, compared with growth rate of Xinjiang’s GDP, the increasing of carbon emissions in Xinjiang is still confronted with a severe situation. Based on this, this paper also applies economic theory and measurement software to build model and examine the relation between energy consumption, economic growth and carbon emissions. In the end, it summarizes the relation of the above three aspects and puts forward four suggestions according to regional characteristics of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang: optimizing energy structure and developing new energy; optimizing industrial structure and promoting the development of low energy industry; innovating technology, saving energy resources and protecting ecological environment; innovating institutions and implementing emission-cutting policies.