The Analysis Of The Regional Difference And Influencing Factors Of Carbon Productivity In China

Addressing climate change, reducing carbon dioxide emissions, and developing a low-carboneconomy has become the consensus of the world. As a developing country, China bears the"common but differentiated" responsibilities of low carbon emissions. Our goal is tosimultaneously achieve a low-carbon emission and sustainable economic development, namely toimprove the carbon productivity.This paper measures the carbon productivity of29provinces, municipalities firstly. Then, itmeasures the differences of the carbon productivity in the standard deviation, coefficient ofvariation and convergence in the national level and the eastern, central and western regions levels.Then it analyzes the impact of population size, per capita GDP, energy intensity, industrialstructure, the level of urbanization and foreign trade openness on carbon productivity. Finally tothe country’s carbon productivity, respectively, the highest level in the three regions and thehighest level of carbon productivity targets municipalities, and regions analyzed carbonproductivity improvement potential. Finally, this paper measures the carbon productivityimprovement potential of the29regions with the goal of achieve the highest level of carbonproductivity in the country and the eastern, central and western regions respectively.The results showed that the levels of carbon productivity in the eastern, central and westernregions are in descending order. There is more difference in comparative difference than absolutedifference. The carbon productivity shows absolute β convergencein the national level,the easternregion and the central region level.The carbon productivity does not show absolute βconvergencein western region. Population size shows a positive effect in the central region andwestern region and negative effect in the eastern region.Per capita GDP shows a negative effect incentral and western regions. Energy intensity shows a negative effect in eastern, central andwestern regions.Proportion of secondary industry shows a negative effect in the eastern andcentral regions and negative effect in the western region. Urbanization shows a positive effect inthe central region.Trade openness shows positive effect in the eastern region.Ningxia, Shanxi,Neimenggu, Guizhou, Xinjiang show much potential of upgrading carbon productivity...