Comparative Study On The Influencing Factors For Carbon Emissions From Regional Perspective

Since the industrial revolution,a huge amount of fossil energy has been consumed along with the rapid economic development,during which the carbon dioxide gas has been emitted and accumulated into a point where greenhouse gas effect happened and,aggravated global warming.In order to alleviate the harm caused by global warming,countries all over the world have taken a series of measures to reduce carbon emissions.As the country responsible for the world's largest share of energy consumption and carbon emissions,for which China is under great pressure of carbon emission reduction from the international community.Hence,it is urgent to implement effective measures of energy conservation and carbon emission reduction.However,with a vast territory,there are significant differences in population size,economic development,technology level,industrial layout,and energy endowment among regions in China,which lead to inconsistencies in the factors influencing carbon emissions among regions.Through comparative study on the influencing factors for carbon emissions from regional perspective,it would be proper to formulate targeted reduction measures of carbon emissions based on their own characteristics,which is beneficial to achieve China's carbon emission reduction targets successfully.Therefore,this study is of great importance on both theoretical significance and application value.Based on the carbon emission coefficient method,the amount of carbon emissions from energy consumption in China's four major economic regions during 2003-2016 are calculated,and each region is quantitatively analyzed from the perspectives of carbon emission characteristics and decoupling relationship between carbon emissions and economic development.Based on the STIRPAT model combined with ridge regression analysis,this paper adopts nine representative influencing factors including the total population,urbanization rate,GDP per capita,foreign direct investment,energy intensity,patent applications granted,the proportion of secondary industry,the proportion of tertiary industry and the possession of private vehicles to analyze the difference of influencing factors on carbon emissions in China's four major economic regions during 2003-2016.Then differentiated regional countermeasures of carbon emission reduction are proposed based on the results of empirical analysis.The main research conclusions of this paper are as follows:(1)During the period from 2003 to 2016,taking the year of 2012 as a watershed,the total carbon emissions and carbon emissions per capita of all regions shows a trend of growth before 2012 and then drops with undulation after that.Generally speaking,the carbon intensity of each region has shown a downward trend year by year.The decoupling relationships between carbon emissions and economic development tends to be good,and the gap of decoupling among regions are gradually narrowing.(2)Both the influencing factors of carbon emissions and the degree of their effect are not consistent among four major economic regions.Urbanization rate,patent applications granted,and the possession of private vehicles are common factors affecting the changes of carbon emissions in four major economic regions.The proportion of the secondary industry is the first contributing factor to carbon emissions in Eastern China and China Central;the total population is the first contributing factor to Western China and Northeast China;the proportion of tertiary industry is the first inhibiting factor in China Central;energy intensity is the first inhibiting factor to Western China and Northeast China.In terms of the cumulative effects of various influencing factors on carbon emissions in four major economic regions during 2003-2016,the total population and the proportion of secondary industry have always been the main contributors to the growth of carbon emissions in regions,while energy intensity and the proportion of tertiary industry play positive roles in carbon emission reduction.(3)Based on the results of empirical analysis and combined with the differences in socio-economic development and physic-geographical environment in China's four major economic regions,this paper proposes a set of targeted and effective countermeasures for energy saving and carbon emission reduction in different regions from the aspects of population,industry,technology,transportation and so on.Not only can the research results of this paper further enrich the theory of carbon emission reduction in China's regions,but also provide the local governments with scientific and reasonable reference to select the best path of carbon emission reduction according to regional characteristics.