Evaluation Of Chinese Provincial Low-Carbon Economic Development Level And Analysis Of Factors Impacting Chinese Provincial Carbon Dioxide Emissions

The emission of greenhouse gas mainly including carbon dioxide into theatmosphere by human economic activities has been causing global warming.Ecologicalbalance,social and economic sustainable development,the survival of mankind wereseriously impacted,which caused widespread concern all over the word.In this context,itwas an inevitable choice to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and develop low-carboneconomy.China is the biggest developing country which positively participated inreducing carbon emissions and advocated developing low-carbon economy.Having astudy of chinese provincial low-carbon economy development level and an analysis ofthe factors impacting carbon emissions and the spatial distribution pattern differencesof chinese provincial carbon emissions are of great significance to reducing carbonemissions and developing low-carbon economy in our country.Relative information and data covering30provinces(except Tibet,due to missingdata) of china from2000to2008were collected in the paper. An evaluation indexsystem of low-carbon economic development level was constructed including fiveaspects which are society, economy, technology, environment and industry; and variousindices weights were determined by using AHP.Comprehensive score of chineseprovincial low-carbon economy development level was gotten by using comprehensivesynthesis method. Based on Kaya identity,energy structure,energy consumption per unitof GDP and per capita GDP were determined as the factors impacting chineseprovincial per capita carbon emissions.Cointegration analysis,error correction modeland granger causality test were given between per capita carbon emissions and theimpacting factors. At last,global spatial autocorrelation and local spatial autocorrelationwere used to have an analyze of the spatial distribution pattern differences of chinese provincial carbon dioxide emission from2000to2009.The results are as following.Firstly, Chinese provincial low-carbon economicdevelopment level in2008is lower than in2000, decreasing after9years. There aretwo kind of change trend. The middle east of China and part of the western of Chinadecline firstly and then rising; the other western of China declines from2000to2008.There is a phenomenon of Chinese provincial low-carbon economic development thatmost of provinces in the eastern are medium-high-carbon economy and provinces inthe mid-west are high-carbon economy, excepting Heilongjiang, and provinces in thewestern are generally worse than those in the central.Secondly, there was a long-termstable equilibrium relationship between per capita carbon emissions and the impactingfactors which included energy structure,energy consumption per unit of GDP and percapita GDP.The energy structure and energy consumption per unit of GDP wererestraining factors,and the per capita GDP was driving factor.In the short-term,when percapita carbon emissions deviated from long-term stable equilibrium relationship,itwould reversed the deviation in the next year. Energy structure and energy consumptionper unit of GDP were the granger reasons to per capita carbon emissions. In the easternand central, per capita carbon emissions was the granger reason to per capita GDP,andthere was two-way causality between them in the western. Per capita carbon emissionswould be affected when current per capita carbon emissions, energy structure, energyconsumption per unit of GDP and per capita GDP were impacted by randomdisturbance term, and this effect could be sustainable. The impact from any variablewould cause Per capita carbon emissions to have distinct response with largefluctuation range in short period and be stable in long period. The VarianceDecomposition result of Per capita carbon emissions indicated that, in both short andlong period, the biggest impact to Per capita carbon emissions was from selfdisturbance. It was affected less from energy structure, energy consumption per unit ofGDP, and the impact from per capita GDP was at the bottom. Thirdly, The GlobalMoran’s I value increased from0.159in2000to0.2029in2001,and then decreased to0.1979in2007,continuing to reduce to-0.0349in2009.The Global Moran’s I identifiedthat positive spatial autocorrelation which decreased slowly was presented between chinese provincial carbon emission. Local measure of spatial autocorrelation with localMoran’s I reveals that provincial carbon emission tend to be spatially clustered innature.There is a phenomenon that high carbon emission in the middle east of Chinaand low gathered in the western of China.Low-carbon economy has been a hot topic in recent years and the study oflow-carbon economy is at the initial stage.The study not only added theory knowledgeto low-carbon economy, but also provided theoretical support for developinglow-carbon economy in chinese provinces.