Study On Low Carbon Development In Xiamen-Zhangzhou-Quanzhou Metropolitan Area

Currently, people around the world are addressing increasingly serious problem of global warming by low-carbon development. Development of low-carbon economy is the general trend of human social and economic development. China formally proposed to develop low-carbon economy in 2007. Enterprise’s low-carbon development in Xiamen-Zhangzhou-Quanzhou metropolitan area is the regional important foundation of accelerating the transformation of development mode, constructing ecological civilization and achieving sustainable development. Based on enterprise environmental behavior theory, this paper uses combining research methods of theoretical reasoning and mathematical interpretation, qualitative analysis and empirical study. A guiding mechanism model of enterprise’s low-carbon development is built to study enterprise’s low carbon development in the Xiamen-Zhangzhou-Quanzhou metropolitan area from a micro-economic subject (enterprise) perspective. The results showed that:1. Low-carbon economy is a development model to achieve the greenhouse gas emissions reduction by improving energy efficiency, and optimizing energy structure and developing carbon emission mitigation technology. The low-carbon behavior of enterprises is the behavior that enterprises rationally use low-carbon technologies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in production and management under relate incentives.2. Carbon emissions of energy activities in Xiamen-Zhangzhou-Quanzhou metropolitan area in 2012 is 114.731 million tons. The carbon dioxide emissions of enterprises in the area have been growing from 2005, especially the industrial enterprises. But the growth trend has been slowed down in recent two years. Industrial enterprises are major emitters of carbon dioxide in the area, and enterprises’ low-carbon development is the key of regional low-carbon development3. Enterprise’s low-carbon development in Xiamen-Zhangzhou-Quanzhou metropolitan area has significant advantages, such as good local economicdevelopment foundation, co-complementary advantagesof three cities, national implementation of ecological civilization and low-carbon development strategies, and government policy support for low carbon enterprises’development. At the same time, enterprise’s low-carbon development is also facing some constrained factors:the inadequate investment of low-carbon research and technology, low contribution rate of technological advancement, no depth awareness of low-carbon development, rapid growth of energy-intensive enterprises, increasing carbon emissions of enterprises, and lagged development of policy support and incentive mechanism.4. The rapid enterprise’s economic growth in Xiamen-Zhangzhou-Quanzhou metropolitan area is the most important cause of the increase of regional carbon emissions. It exceeds the effect that energy intensity reduction restraints the enterprises’carbon emissions growth.Finally, some policy recommendations of low-carbon development in Xiamen-Zhangzhou-Quanzhou metropolitan area are put forward. These maifly includes paying attention to the fundamental role of low-carbon development of the micro-economic enterprises, improving policy guiding mechanism of enterprises’ low-carbon development, motivation growth of energy conservation and low-carbon enterprises, and raising awareness of low-carbon consumption.