The Impact Of Population Factors On Carbon Emissions

More and more scientific proofs indicate that human-produced greenhouse gas hasan impact on global climate change. With the world’s deeper cooperation and game onclimate change and mitigation actions, people pay more and more attention to theresearch on energy consumption and carbon emissions. China has made sustainedefforts to deal with climate change, and announced quantified action target to controlgreenhouse gas emission on November,2009. However, under the traditionaleconomic developing mode driven by fossil energy, for China which is in the processof industrialization and urbanization, rapid economic development will inevitablybring huge amounts of carbon emissions.As a developing country with a large population, China is now in the period ofsocial transformation. Its demographic development and residents’ consumptionpattern is undergoing a profound change. The external constraints from carbonemissions and internal demand from demographic development mingles together.Therefore, analyzing the impacts on carbon emissions from the perspective ofpopulation and consumption is beneficial to promote the coordinated development ofpopulation, resources and environment and has important practical significance toconstruct a resource-saving, environment-friendly and balanced population-basedsociety.The content of the paper is surrounding the following areas: First, this paper triesto review the relative theories and research development on Low-Carbon economics,Carbon emissions and the relationship between population and carbon emissions,summarizes and comments the definition and clarification of the concepts ofLow-Carbon economics, the connotation, development features and affecting factorsof Low-Carbon economics. Second, linked by consumption and production activities,we tried to fully and intensively study the impact of population factor on carbonemissions, and setup the impact conducting mechanisms. Third, based on theoreticstudies, we tried to conduct empirical analysis on the trends of development of the population and carbon emissions in China, hence to understand the direction andeffects of population growth, population structure, population quality and family sizeon carbon emissions. Forth, from the perspective of coordinated development ofpopulation, resource and environment, we tried to summarize the experiences of thepopulation practice to facilitate the development of Low-Carbon economics; we madesuggestions on the population development in China from the Low-Carbon economicsbackground. Specifically, the paper is divided into7chapters.ChapterⅠis introduction. This chapter presents the research background, researchsignificance in theory and practice, expounds the research train of thought, researchcontent and research method, summarizes the innovation, and points out the futuredirection for further research.Chapter Ⅱ is literature review. This chapter firstly introduces the researchprogress of low-carbon economy from its connotation and evaluating indicators,low-carbon city and low-carbon consumption, secondly sums up the classification ofcarbon emission from research methods and perspectives and then reviews theresearch situation about population and carbon emissions at home and abroad.Chapter Ⅲ is basic theories. This chapter gives a brief overview of the theoriesabout the population factor and carbon emissions, such as the demographic transitiontheory, moderate population theory, the theory of ecological footprint, the decouplingtheory, environment of the Kuznets curve theory, IPAT equation and Kaya model andcarbon emission estimation methods. This provides basis and support for furtheranalysis.Chapter Ⅳ is transmission mechanism. This chapter puts forward transmissionmechanism between population factor and carbon emission with consumptionactivities as the bond and analyzes how each demographic factors affect the carbonemissions. Specifically, the population size directly promote carbon emissions;urbanization of the population change is the main driving force of current emissionsgrowth, the effects of the population age structure are complex and the actiondirection has not formed yet; the impacts of employment structure are closelyconnected; the miniaturization trend of family size is an important factor in the increase in carbon emission; the quality of population reduces carbon emissions tosome extent.Chapter Ⅴ introduces the basic situation of population, consumption and carbonemissions by using statistical data. This chapter quantitatively assesses the temporaland spatial variation, structural characteristics, urban-rural differences and developingtrends of China’s population growth, demographic transition, economic development,household consumption and carbon emissions in the past30years and makes ainternational comparison.Chapter Ⅵ is the impact of changes in demographic factors on carbon emissions.This chapter firstly builds a STIRPAT model with more demographic variables, usingPartial Least-Squares Regression fitting to estimate the elastic coefficient of theimpact of population size, population structure on carbon emissions, and thecomparison finds that demographic structure has more impact to carbon emissionsthan the population size. Secondly it builds VAR model, using Co-integrationAnalysis, Impulse Response Analysis, Granger Causality Tests to analyze thelong-term changes between demographic factors and carbon emissions. The resultsshowed that: population size, the population urbanization, the proportion ofworking-age population, the proportion of secondary industry employment population,family size has existent co-integration relationship respectively with carbon emissions;population size, population urbanization rate, the proportion of working-agepopulation, the proportion of secondary industry employment population have apositive correlation with carbon emissions and family size has a negative correlationwith carbon emissions; population size and carbon emissions interact each other;consumption has a significant effect on promoting carbon emission, and technologicalprogress has slowed down the effects.Chapter VII has proposed the population development and carbon reductionsuggestions under the constraint of population growth and carbon emissions. Fromthe population-related social policy facet, certain initiatives of the low-carbondevelopment should be integrated in the population absolute number of high growthand accelerate the process of urbanization of the population. From the perspective of improving population quality, we should adopt positive response for population aging.In addition, we should provide strong human resources for the upgrading of industrialstructure and low-carbon economic development. From the consumer policy facet,guidance and evaluation system should be established to promote moderate,low-carbon consumption, and promote the residents’ consumption patterns tosustainable way in the orientation of development. In the aspect of economicdevelopment, the dependence of economic growth on energy consumption and carbonemissions should be adjusted. For instance, to adjusting the industrial structure,promoting industrial low-carbon; strengthening technological innovation, improvingenergy efficiency and reducing carbon emissions intensity.