Spatio-temporal Difference And Correlation Analysis Between Energy Consumption And Environmental Quality In China

Energy is the key driving force of modern industry to provide a steady support for the rapid development of China’s economic growth and social advancement,but with immeasurable adverse impact on the environment.In order to understand the spatio-temporal difference and correlation between energy consumption and environmental quality,firstly,this research analyzed the spatial and temporal pattern of carbon emissions from three kinds of energy consumption from 1995 to 2014,coal,oil and gas,respectively.And secondly,a multilayer model with 19 different indices was built through Principal Component Analysis(PCA)and Analytical Hierarchy Process(AHP),to reveal the spatio-temporal changes of regional environment quality from 2003 to 2014.Finally,correlation analysis between energy consumption and environmental quality was performed.The results show that in China carbon emissions and carbon emission per capita had been increasing and carbon intensity had been decreasing since 1995.There is significant difference for spatio-temporal variations of regional carbon emissions.The basic changing trend of environmental quality has been gradually improving,annually,nationwide.From spatial perspective,the environmental quality of the Middle and East coastal areas was poor in 2003.By 2014,the environmental quality in these areas had been greatly improved.On the contrary,the environmental quality in the West had been deteriorating,year by year.The improving trend of environmental quality nationwide is not significant.According to the correlation analysis,the integrated environmental quality index was increased by 0.185 for each additional 100 million tons of carbon emissions.Among all provinces,only in 13 relatively developed areas,the changing trend of environmental quality was improving with the increase of energy consumption,such as Beijing,Tianjin,Hebei,Jiangsu,Zhejiang and Shanghai and so on;while in Shanxi,Shandong and Henan,there is significant negative linear relationship;and for the rest 14 provinces located in Western China and Northern China,there is no significant linear relationship.