In order to find the efficient ways to reduce carbon emission intensity in China, we utilize the LMDI method to decompose the changes of China׳s carbon emissions and carbon emission intensity from 1996 to 2010, from the perspectives of energy sources and industrial structure respectively. Then we introduce the decoupling index to analyze the decoupling relationship between carbon emissions and economic growth in China. The results indicate that, on the one hand, economic growth appeared as the main driver of carbon emissions increase in the past decades, while the decrease of energy intensity and the cleaning of final energy consumption structure played significant roles in curbing carbon emissions; meanwhile, the secondary industry proved the principal source of carbon emissions reduction among the three industries and had relatively higher potential. On the other hand, when the decoupling relationship is considered, most years during the study period saw the relative decoupling effect between carbon emissions and economic growth, which indicated that the reduction effect of inhibiting factors of carbon emissions was less than the driving effect of economic growth, and the economy grew with increased carbon emissions; there appeared the absolute decoupling effect in 1997, 2000 and 2001, which implied that the economy grew while carbon emissions decreased; whereas no decoupling effect was identified in 2003 and 2004.

The decomposition of energy-related carbon emission and its decoupling with economic growth in China

Can environmental innovation facilitate carbon emissions reduction? Evidence from China

This study investigates the influence of disaggregated renewable electricity production by source on CO2 emission in 23 selected European countries for the period of 1990–2013. Panel data techniques were used in examining the relationships. The Pedroni cointegration results indicated that CO2 emission, GDP growth, urbanization, financial development, and renewable electricity production by source were cointegrated. Moreover, the fully modified ordinary least-square results revealed that GDP growth, urbanization, and financial development increase CO2 emission in the long run, while trade openness reduces it. Furthermore, renewable electricity generated from combustible renewables and waste, hydroelectricity, and nuclear power have a negative long-run effect on CO2 emission, while renewable electricity generated from solar power and wind power is insignificant. The VECM Granger causality also revealed that GDP growth is the only variable that has causal effects on CO2 emission in all the investigated models, while the rest of the variables have causal effects on CO2 emission in only a few models. A number of policy recommendations were provided for the European countries.

The influence of economic growth, urbanization, trade openness, financial development, and renewable energy on pollution in Europe

The main aim of this review article is to review of DEA models in regarding to energy efficiency. This paper reviewed and summarized the different models of DEA that have been applied around the world to development of energy efficiency problems. Consequently, a review of 144 published scholarly papers appearing in 45 high-ranking journals between 2006 and 2015 have been obtained to achieve a comprehensive review of DEA application in energy efficiency. Accordingly, the selected articles have been categorized based on year of publication; author (s) nationalities, scope of study, time duration, application area, study purpose, results and outcomes. Results of this review paper indicated that DEA showed great promise to be a good evaluative tool for future analysis on energy efficiency issues, where the production function between the inputs and outputs was virtually absent or extremely difficult to acquire.

A comprehensive review of data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach in energy efficiency

China’s macroeconomic policy framework has been determined to ensure steady growth, adjust the industrial structure and advance the socioeconomic reforms in recent years. And urbanization is supposed to be one of the most important socioeconomic reform directions. Meanwhile, China also committed to reduce carbon emissions intensity by 2020, then it should be noted that what kind of impact of these policy orientations on carbon emission intensity. Therefore, based on the historical data from 1978 to 2011, this paper quantitatively studies the impact of China’s economic growth, industrial structure and urbanization on carbon emission intensity. The results indicate that, first, there is long-term cointegrating relationship between carbon emission intensity and other factors. And the increase in the share of tertiary industry [i.e., the ratio of tertiary industry value added to gross domestic product (GDP)] and economic growth (here we use the real GDP per capita) play significant roles in curbing carbon emission intensity, while the promotion of population urbanization (i.e., the share of population living in the urban regions of total population) may lead to carbon emission intensity growth. Second, there exists significant one-way causality running from the urbanization rate and economic growth to carbon emission intensity, respectively. Third, among the three drivers, economic growth proves the main influencing factor of carbon emission intensity changes during the sample period.

The impact of economic growth, industrial structure and urbanization on carbon emission intensity in China

Regional allocation of carbon emission quotas in China: Evidence from the Shapley value method

Determinants of carbon emissions in ‘Belt and Road initiative’ countries: A production technology perspective

In order to investigate the main drivers of CO2 emissions changes in China during the 11th Five-Year Plan period (2006–2010) and seek the main ways to reduce CO2 emissions, we decompose the changes of energy-related CO2 emissions using the production-theoretical decomposition analysis approach. The results indicate that, first, economic growth and energy consumption are the two main drivers of CO2 emissions increase during the sample period; particularly in the northern coastal, northwest and central regions, where tremendous coal resources are consumed, the driving effect of their energy consumption on CO2 emissions appears fairly evident. Second, the improvement of carbon abatement technology and the reduction in energy intensity play significant roles in curbing carbon emissions, and comparatively the effect of carbon abatement technology proves more significant. Third, energy use technical efficiency, energy use technology and carbon abatement technical efficiency have only slight influence on CO2 emissions overall. In the end, we put forward some policy recommendations for China’s government to reduce CO2 emissions intensity in the future.

Decomposing the changes of energy-related carbon emissions in China: evidence from the PDA approach

Climate change has been shown to have significant impacts on both power demands and power supplies. However, empical assessments on the latter are still limited. Using monthly data collected from 461 coal-fired power plants in China during the period from 2012 to 2014, this paper explores the influences of a suite of climatic factors and non-climatic factors on power generation efficiency. Furthermore, we project future consequences of efficiency with various climate change scenarios. We find significant heterogeneities in the impacts of temperatures across different types of power plants. On average, a 1 °C increase in monthly temperature is associated with an efficiency reduction of 0.09% and 0.32%, respectively, for electricity-only plants and electricity plus heat plants; this means that China's northern region—which has more electricity plus heat plants—is more vulnerable to climate change. Future projections suggest that efficiency reductions induced by climate change could lead to substantial power supply declines. Under the RCP8.5 scenarios, the power losses would reach 15.77 billion kW h per year in the 2050s, accounting for 13.5% of Beijing's electricity consumption in 2019. Back-of-the-envelope calculations show that the improvement in generation efficiency induced by the shut down of small and old units cannot fully offset the supply reduction by shut down itself. Factoring in the rapidly increasing power demands imposes more alarming challenges for stable and sustainable power supplies.

Yabin Da

Papers

The decomposition of energy-related carbon emission and its decoupling with economic growth in China

Regional allocation of carbon emission quotas in China: Evidence from the Shapley value method

Determinants of carbon emissions in ‘Belt and Road initiative’ countries: A production technology perspective

Decomposing the changes of energy-related carbon emissions in China: evidence from the PDA approach

The impacts of climate change on coal-fired power plants: evidence from China