Economic Growth And Environmental Pollution

In recent years, as the global economy is developing rapidly, the contradiction between pollution and economic growth is becoming increasingly serious. People have already realized that the economic growth at the expense of the damaging environment will be unsustainable and governments are seeking to the right pattern of economic growth which can minimize pollution.Since the reform and opening-up policy, the rapid growth of China’s economy can be referred to another economic miracle after East Asian miracle. However, when China’s rapid economic growth arouses widespread concern in the global scope, China’s environmental pollution problems are also forced the world criticism. Chinese government has set out to change the mode of economic growth, to learn from western developed countries’environmental management experience, and to try to construct harmonious society with balance between human and nature&economy and environment. Japan, one of China’s neighbour, in order to promote the economy after the Second World War, chose linear economic development route with "Mass Production&Mass Consumption". Japan’s economy made East Asian miracle to the attention of the world in1950s to1980s, but Japan also paid invocatable cost of the environment. Japan had become the world-famous "public nuisance" nation, which did great damage to the image of the state and national health. As the government and national environmental protection consciousness enhancement, Japan increased investment in environmental protection and technology, also built a perfect environment protection policy system. With the efforts of all sectors of the community, Japan’s environment has been improved significantly. The clear sky and the blue sea have been back to the national eyes. This paper will research the relationship between Japan’s economic growth and environmental quality, and raise suggestions to the Chinese economy and environmental sustainable development policy.This empirical study consists of two parts. The first part examines the influence degree and influencing factors of Japan’s economic growth to the environment quality. First of all, select Japan’s18administrative areas’GDP and environment pollution index from1981to2009, respectively examine Japan’s northern, central and southern areas’ relationship between economic growth and environmental quality. Examine whether their relationship is inverted U curve or Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC), or other shape of environment curve. Thus we can analyze the relationship between Japanese economy development and the environment quality. The empirical results show that, the higher the level of economic development of the region, the better the situation of improving the quality of the environment. Then, select Japan’s most representative economic indicators and environmental input index from1980to2009as explanatory variables, use comprehensive evaluation index of the quality of the environment which is obtained by Principal Component Analysis as dependent variable, and examine the influence degree of various environmental factors affecting the quality of the environment. The empirical results show that, the environmental protection investment’s influence on the environment quality is not obvious; the industrial structure’s influence on the environment quality is the most obvious; environmental policy implementation will also affect the environment quality. The relationship between all the other factors and the environmental quality has national characteristics, which need to be understood with Japan’s specific situation. The second part of the empirical study examines the influence degree of Japan’s environmental pollution to economic growth. This part also chooses Japan’s18administrative areas’economic development index (GDP) and environment pollution index from1981to2009and analyses the northern, the central and the southern respectively. The results showed that the influence degree of Japan’s environmental pollution to economic growth had a great relevance with the areas industrial structure.This paper finally learns from Japan’s experience of economy development, and put forward policy suggestions aiming at reducing the pollution and improving the quality of our country’s environment. This paper holds that in order to realize the harmonious development of economy and environment, the industrial structure and export product structure should be optimized. At the same time, not only a perfect policy as a guide is necessary, but also enterprise and national enthusiasm to participate in the environmental protection activities is needed to be improved. We must promote the environmental protection technology innovation, popularize the environmental education, and boost the implementation of the policy related to environmental protection from both the macro and micro perspective.