| Since the reform and opening up policy in 1978,China has experienced a rapid process of urbanization.With the concentration of population to urban areas,the infrastructure construction has changed the demand for energy-intensive industries such as building materials,chemicals,and metallurgy.The concentration of production and industrial agglomeration to urban areas have changed the industrial structure and energy utilization modes.People living in cities require more energy due to the increase of long distance commuting and frequent travel,the transportation of materials.Besides,demand for household appliance has been changed because of the changing consumption patterns and lifestyle of urban residents.The scales of economies,technology improvement and upgrading of industrial structure,which will change energy consumption,are also accompanied with urbanization.It is obvious that urbanization has an intrinsic driving mechanism to change energy consumption.It should be noted that fossil energy-dominated energy structure is one of the causes of environmental pollution and climate change.The Chinese government has put forward to construct new-type urbanization in 2014,which implies the urbanization in China has transformed into a new stage.One objection of new-type urbanization is to inverse the old urbanization mode which is characterized by large input,high energy consumption and high emission,to build green urbanization which requires intensively usage of energy.To discover the path of urbanization that is energy conservation and environmental friendly,the answers to the following questions are meaningful.How about the current status of urbanization and energy consumption in China?How does urbanization affect energy consumption and how is the transmission mechanism in spatial?Considering the disparity of economic development and urbanization in various regions of China,how does the impact of urbanization on energy consumption evolve in time and space?In addition to the target of total energy consumption constraint,energy intensity reduction is also an important aspect of the energy policy of China.Does urbanization affect energy efficiency and how does it happen?This paper will try to analyze the above questions from three spatial scales:national,provincial and urban.First,the theoretical background and transmission mechanism of the relationship between urbanization and energy is presented,including ecological modernization,urban environmental transition,compact city theories,sustainable development,consumption preference theory and the development stage of urbanization.Through the analysis of the status quo of urbanization and energy consumption,especially by comparing China's energy supply,energy consumption,energy intensity and energy structure in time and space,the problems in urbanization and energy consumption are explored.Second,considering the spatial spillovers and spatial clusters of energy consumption induced by economy linkage,inseparable consumption preferences and common energy policy,spatial Durbin models are adopted to identity the spatial transmission of urbanization on aggregates and dis-aggregated energy.Besides,spatial models with interaction terms between urbanization and sectors are utilized to reveal the interaction effects of urbanization and energy consumption sectors.It is found significant positive spatial lagged energy both in provincial and urban level data,indicating demonstration effect between regions and spatial auto-correlation can not be ignored when modeling.It is necessary to make full use of the spatial spillover effect,strengthen the cooperation of regional governments in energy conservation and emission reduction,and improve the coordinated development mechanism between regions.The heterogeneous effect of urbanization on energy is discovered by region division in urban data,which inspires the study of evolution of urbanization on energy.The research on the six energy consuming sectors confirms the role of third industry during urbanization on energy conservation,while industrialization and urbanization push energy demand in the same direction.Third,the evolution of urbanization on energy consumption is analyzed using geographically and temporally weighted regression model The push effect of urbanization is alleviated recently,which is caused by agglomeration effect and consciousness on energy and environment.The disparity between cities is larger than between provinces,indicating the inappropriate of "one-size-fits-all" policy.Forth,persistent energy efficiency is dominated in the total factor energy efficiency and it shows large disparity between provinces.Due to the existence of excess and obsolete capacity,backward equipment replacement,and low technology,energy inefficiency is a long run problem.In accordance with energy policy in the five-year plan,energy efficiency improvement is a long run target.It is indicated to consider the long run effect of energy policy,improving the systemic factors,and establishing long run energy conservation goals and environmental regulation policies.The high transient efficiency shows the inefficiency is controlled well in short term.Urbanization has negative impact on both long run and short run energy efficiency,indicating the necessity to pay attention on long run and short run behaviors of energy consuming sectors.Finally,energy conservation policies during urbanization are proposed from the perspective of energy supply revolution,regional coordinated development,different region policy and optimization and upgrading of industrial structure.It is also recommended to regulate energy consumption in every sectors during urbanization,which is consistent with the policy of energy demand evolution. |
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