Research On Driving Factors Of Energy Related Carbon Emissions In Beijing,Tianjin And Hebei Regions

Global warming is one of the worst environmental threat.It has been proved by scholars that greenhouse gas,especially CO2 emissions,is the primary reason for global warming.Since the conduction of the open and reform policy,China has obtained marvelous economic achievement through the high-input and high-consumption growth model.Consequently,the emission of CO2 also increased dramatically.At present,China has become the largest emitter in the world,facing great carbon reduction pressure of international community.In the year 2009,the Chinese government declared that it would cut carbon intensity by 40-45% relative to the level of 2005.In order to achieve this carbon mitigation target,the central government allocated specific goals to each province and municipal city.Many provinces and municipal cities began to make out carbon reduction plan based on their local realities.To launch carbon abatement strategies more effectively,it is crucial to have a deep analysis about the influencing factors of carbon emission at the regional level.This paper selects Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region,the core center of north China,as the study case,to explore the driving factors and carbon reduction measures at the regional level.This thesis has adopted an improved STIRPAT model to systematically study the determinant factors driving carbon emissions of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region during the period 1995-2012.Based on pervious study and the condition of this region,population size,urbanization level,affluence level,energy intensity,industrial level and service industry level are selected as study factors.To eliminate multicollinearity problems,partial least squares regression is applied to improve this model.Empirical results show that urbanization level,population size and affluence level is the major influencing factors of carbon emissions in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.Improvement in energy intensity is the major inhibitory factor and partially offsets the increase in carbon emissions of Beijing and Tianjin,but it has little influence on CO2 emissions of Hebei.Because of different development stage,industrial level and service level have influenced Beijing a lot,but they play a less important role in the emissions of Tianjin.In terms of Hebei,industrial level is an important driving factor,but service level is not important.To the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region,urbanization level,affluence level,population size,energy intensity and service level are important,but industrial level is not important.Finally,policy recommendations for carbon emission reduction plan in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region have been given.Moreover,the approach developed in this research is transferable and can be utilized to analyze driving factors of CO2 emissions and formulate sustainable development strategies in another region.