Research On The Affecting Factors Of Carbon Emissions In Guangdong Based On LMDI

In recent years, the rapid growth of economy and the extensive consumption offossil energy lead to global greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide graduallyincreasing, which causes global climate warming. It seems no doubt that climatechange will put extremely serious impact on the survival and development of human.Therefore inhibiting the rapid growth of carbon emissions has become the inescapableresponsibility of all countries in the world.China, as a developing country, is currently in the rapid development stage of theindustrialization and urbanization. A lot of energy consumption is inevitable.Additionally, China is a country which is rich in coal, but short of oil and gas. Thehigh energy consumption and carbon emissions have captured more attentions.According to statistics, China has overtaken the United States as the largest carbonemissions country in the world. China is facing with the very serious environmentalproblem, as well as the pressure of carbon emission reduction applied by thedeveloped countries. Under the background, in2009China made a clear commitmentto the world:“by2020china’s carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP will havedropped by40%-45%compared to that in2005.” Taking the low-carbon way ofenergy saving and emissions reduction has become an inevitable choice of China’seconomic development. As one of china’s biggest provinces in economy and energyconsumption, Guangdong’s carbon emissions have a significant impact on thenational carbon emissions. By the year2011, according to the National Developmentand Reform Commission, Guangdong’s emissions intensity of carbon dioxide and theenergy consumption per unit of GDP will have dropped by19.5%and by18%respectively during the period of the “twelfth five years plan”, which is the moststringent requirements all the provinces. Guangdong has a long way to go in theenergy-saving and emission reduction.Therefore, based on the existed papers on carbon emissions, using the LMDImethod, this paper discusses about the driving factors of Guangdong’s carbon emissions. Firstly, this paper made a detailed analysis about the characteristics of theGuangdong’s carbon emissions, energy consumption and economic development from1997to2011.secondly, this paper uses the LMDI model to quantitatively analyze thedriving effect of economic scales, energy intensity, energy consumption structures andindustrial structures on carbon emissions increment and the industrial carbonemissions in Guangdong from1997to2011.Empirical results demonstrates that the economic scales effect, whosecontribution ratio reaches125.99%, played a dominant role in increasing carbonemissions; the effect of energy intensity and energy consumption structures were-24.57%and-1.42%respectively. In addition, the reason is that the rapid developmentof the key energy consuming industries, resulting in the growth of Guangdong carbonemissions. Although in recent years, the capital and technology intensive industrieshave a fast development in Guangdong, the inhibition effect of efficiency factor oncarbon emissions are still unable to offset the reverse of high energyconsuming industry rapid expansion.Finally, based on the results of empirical research, the paper proposes somemeasures and suggestions of carbon reduction in Guangdong.