Research On Spatial-temporal Characteristics And Regional Difference Of Influencing Factors Of Carbon Dioxide Emissions In China

With the development of China’s industrialization and urbanization,China’s carbon dioxide emissions have increased year by year,which cause serious harm to the environment in China.Moreover,the international pressure on China’s carbon emission reduction is also increasing.Therefore,in order to complete the targets for reducing carbon emissions and improve our own environment,it is necessary to research the influence factors of carbon emissions in China and put forward the policy recommendations to help the government to achieve emission reduction targets.Based on the above research background,this paper first qualitatively analyze the present situation of carbon emission of China,and then quantitatively analyze the influence factors of carbon emissions based on the time series data,panel data and spatial data,the specific contents are as follows:（1）In this paper,30 provincial-level administrative units of China were divided into three different levels of economic development regions according to the GDP per capita from 1997 to 2012.A STIRPAT（Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population,Affluence and Technology）model was used to examine the impact factors on energyrelated CO₂ emissions,including population,economic level,technology level,urbanization level,industrialization level and foreign trade degree.The results indicated that the effect of energy intensity was the greatest in highly developed region.Nevertheless,the impact of urbanization,industry structure and foreign trade degree in under developed region was higher than the other two regions.Population and GDP per capita had greater effect on carbon emissions in developing region than the others.Finally,differentiated measures for CO₂ reductions should be adopted according to local conditions of different regions.（2）The influencing factors of carbon emissions of carbon emission in eastern,central and western China were analyzed based on the panel data from 1997 to 2012 in 30 provinces.The results showed that each variable had significantly impact on the carbon emissions in the eastern region.Among them,urbanization had the largest impact on carbon emissions,while the foreign trade degree has a negatively effect on carbon emissions.In the central region,the regression coefficients of all variables were significant.In addition to the level of urbanization and carbon emissions were negatively correlated,the other variables were positively correlated with carbon emissions and the industrial structure had the greatest impact on carbon emissions.In the western region,the relationship of urbanization and the foreign trade degree was not significant,while the other variables had positive correlation with carbon emissions.Furthermore,the level of economic development was the main factors affecting carbon emissions in the western region.（3）This paper employs Geographical Weighted Regression（GWR）model to examine the impact of urbanization,industrial structure and energy intensity on CO₂ emissions in different regions and reveals the spatial differences in different provinces in 1997,2002,2007 and 2012,respectively.Results showed that the impact of urbanization on carbon dioxide emissions continue to increase and the impact on that of eastern region is the greatest.Industrial structure has the most significant effect on carbon emissions,but the influence is decreasing year by year.Energy intensity has a positive impact on the overall CO₂ emissions,while having negative impacts on that of some central and western provinces,which means that there exists energy rebound effect.Therefore,the government should enact reasonable carbon reduction targets in different provinces.Besides,cooperative emission reduction plan is supposed to carry out in adjacent provinces.At the same time,it is necessary to take the economic development condition of the underdeveloped provinces into consideration and the developed regions and provinces should shoulder more carbon emission reduction task.