Research On The Carbon Emission Reduction Effect Of Economic Growth Under The "Double Carbon" Target

Over the past 40 years of reform and opening up,China’s industrialization process has advanced rapidly,and the ensuing industrial agglomeration and scale effect have greatly promoted rapid economic development.However,the excessive consumption of fossil energy under the crude economic growth mode has also produced many environmental problems.On September 22,2020,General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed the "double carbon" target for the first time at the75 th session of the United Nations General Assembly.However,China is currently at a critical moment of transition from high economic growth to a high-quality economy.Both energy consumption and carbon emissions have not yet been decoupled from social and economic development.Therefore,how to achieve the carbon peak in 2030 without affecting economic growth will be a major challenge for our government.This is also the issue that we want to focus in this paper.We will further explore the mechanism between economic growth and carbon emissions from the perspective of how economic growth affecting carbon emission.With the continuous expansion of economic scale,carbon emission will show an "inverted U-shaped" evolution trend.And the optimization and upgrading of the industrial structure plays an important role between the two.The optimization and upgrading of industrial structure can have a greater impact on regional carbon emissions through the optimization of resource allocation and energy consumption structure,and then play a moderating role in the carbon emission reduction effect of economic growth.This paper proposes a research hypothesis based on the above theoretical analysis and introduces two types of indicators to measure the optimization and upgrading level of industrial structure,namely,advanced industrial structure and rationalized industrial structure,based on previous studies.At the same time,panel data of 283 prefecture-level cities from 2006-2017 are selected,and the interaction terms of industrial structure advanced rationalization,and GDP per capita are introduced for regression analysis based on the STIRPAT model,to obtain the following three conclusions: first,there is an environmental Kuznets curve in China at present,and it is not yet possible to achieve the carbon peak;second,the improvement of the advanced level of industrial structure can alleviate the rise of carbon emissions caused by economic growth;third,it is difficult to achieve the carbon peak by 2030 under the current level of industrial structure rationalization,and accelerating the construction of a more reasonable industrial structure can push the carbon peak forward.Unlike the emission coefficient method used in previous literature,this paper measures urban carbon emissions through nighttime lighting data at the city level,and innovatively introduces industrial structure optimization and upgrading to study its moderating effect on the carbon emission reduction effect of economic growth.The above study not only deepens the understanding of the relationship between economic growth and carbon emissions,but also provides the following important policy insights for achieving the goal of "double carbon" under high-quality economic growth: First,accelerate the construction of a modernized tertiary industry led by science and technology,information,finance,and other services,while increasing investment in technological research and development in the secondary industry,accelerating the upgrading and transformation of traditional manufacturing industries,and continuously promoting the evolution of the industrial structure to an advanced state.Second,to create and maintain a fair and orderly market environment,while providing appropriate guidance and coordination of industrial policies,further improving the future development planning of industries,and promoting coordinated development within and between industries.Third,fully understand the impact of the optimization and upgrading of industrial structure on the carbon emission reduction effect of economic growth at different stages of economic development and regional differences in resource endowment,and formulate different carbon emission reduction policies by region and by stage to avoid "one-size-fits-all" emission reduction,and make gradual and sustained efforts.