| China has entered the development stage of industrialization, and is undergoing great changes in fields of economy and society; the energy sector also faces many challenges, including the structure of energy production, energy consumption and energy efficiency. Along with energy consumption is the problems of environmental pollution. The issues of how to improve the energy efficiency, how to enhance the overall competitiveness of the national economy, how to balance the relationship between energy, environment, and sustainable development in the country, become the common concerned topics for researchers and policy makers.The "energy-environment-economy"(3E) system is the research object in this paper. Based on the statistical data from the National Bureau of Statistics, with the adoption of the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, and the application of system dynamics(SD), 3 E system of C hina is analyzed and researched. Through the prediction and simulation of the future of 3 E system, policy suggestions are provided for coordinating the development of the 3E system in China.First, with the method of qualitative analysis, the developing condition of the 3E system in the past 14 years(2000-2013) in China is analyzed. Second, according to the causal relationships of the variables in the 3E system, the Causal Loop Diagram and Flow Diagram are established with Vensim software. Further, the quantitative relationships between different variables in the system are determined thus the SD model of 3E system is completed. Then through model verification and model validation, the logic of the model is proved reasonable, the simulation results a nd statistical data fit well, the sensitivity examination is approved. Finally the developing trend of the 3E system in China for the next 10 years(2015-2025) years is predicted using SD model, and scenario analysis is used to explore the different growing trends of target indexes in 3E system under different scenarios, thus policy suggestions are provided for coordinating the development of the 3E system in China.Analysis of 3E system for the past 14 years(2000-2013) shows that:(1) The total energy consumption in C hina is growing rapidly; energy consumption per capita is rising; energy consumption per unit of GDP is falling. Energy structure is changing, coal consumption proportion first increased and then decreased, oil consumption has been declining in general, while natural gas and renewable energy proportion is on the rise as a whole.(2) Industrial pollution emissions has decreased after increased at first, illustrating that the environmental governance started to improve when economy grew to a certain level.(3) GDP has been on the rise, while its growth rate first increased and then decreased. The industrial structure has been changing. The first industry proportion has been dropping year by year; the second industry has been declining on the whole with fluctuation; the third industry has been increasing on the whole with fluctuation. The third industry began to surpass the second industry with a proportion of 45.5%.(4) The continuing growth of energy consumption provides the power for the high speed of economic development, but also brought some influence on the environment. On the other hand, more attention will be taken on the environmental problems when economic grows to a certain level.The 3E system in the next 10 years(2015-2025) is forecasted using the SD model, and the results are as follows: China’s GDP in the next 10 years, will continue to grow rapidly and in 2025, the GDP will reach about 170 trillion yuan, which is about 3.7 times that of 2013. China’s population will continue to increase, but the growth will gradually slow down, reaching 1.33 billion by 2025. Total energy production and consumption will also maintain rapid growth, pollution emission intensity will further increase, but the growth rate is slowing. Pollutant levels will increase quickly, the pollution governance index will increased to more than 95% by 2025. Coal reservation will continue to drop; oil reservation started to maintain growth after 2015; the natural gas will also increase. In addition, based on above analysis, the following suggestions for the coordinated development of 3 E system are provided: further liberalisation of one-child policy, appropriating fertility to prevent the irreversible reducing act of population; developing new energy and improving energy intensity to reduce energy consumption of production thus to reduce the external dependency of C hina’s energy; further strengthen environmental protection investment in science and technology, so that the pollution emission intensity can be decreased significantly.In scenario analysis, "final consumption percentage" is selected as variable parameter, and the consequences of GDP, energy consumption, pollution emissions intensity and total investment for controlling environmental pollution are explored. Results show that there are internal relations among the energy, environment, and economy subsystems. Suggestion is given to that the government improve residents’ disposable income by public finance system reform, and encourage and stimulate consumption through economic means, in order to improve the final consumption, so as to provide guarantee for steady GDP growth. |
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