A Study On The Impact Of FDI And Environmental Awareness On Carbon Emissions

After the mid-twentieth century,as the war of the Second World War gradually subsided,countries all over the world gradually pulled out of the war and started to focus on the recovery and development of economy.After the normalization of relations among countries,trade between countries has become more frequent,and many multinational enterprises have begun to move towards the internationalization.Foreign direct investment expanded rapidly all over the world and the global economy developed rapidly.However,in the process of economic development,countries have gradually realized that economic development has brought better and better living standards and material conditions for their residents,at the same time,it has also brought unavoidable pollution to their own environment.In recent years,global warming has gradually become an important environmental pollution problem threatening human survival in the future.Developing a low-carbon economy has been put on the top of important government objectives by governments of all countries.While foreign direct investment brings economic benefits,environmental pollution caused by foreign-funded enterprises has also begun to receive widespread social attention.It is gradually realized that in the long course of development in the past,especially after the industrial revolution,economic growth seems to deviate from the clean environment.Citizens of all countries begin to care about the environment spontaneously and aspire to develop a low-carbon economy.In this context,this paper attempts to explore the impact of foreign direct investment and citizens' awareness of environmental protection on carbon emissions in various countries.Few scholars in the past have directly studied the relationship between FDI,environmental awareness and carbon emissions.As for FDI and carbon emissions,some scholars have explored the relationship between FDI and host country carbon emissions.They found that FDI in the investing countries may greatly promote the host country's carbon emissions because of the " Pollution Haven Hypothesis " effect,and in some cases because of the "pollution halo" effect of technology spillovers,reduce the host country's carbon dioxide emissions.However,few scholars have studied the relationship between citizen's environmental awareness and carbon emissions.Most of the existing literature focuses on the role of citizen's environmental awareness in environmental improvement through interaction with government behavior.So first of all,by reviewing the previous scholars' literature,this paper explores the theoretical mechanism of the interaction of the three variables,and finds that the promotion of citizens' environmental awareness may promote environmental improvement through citizens' spontaneous restraint of their own behavior and supervision,reporting,feedback of government and enterprise behavior.At the same time,environmental awareness may affect a country's carbon emissions through the interaction with foreign direct investment.Subsequently,this paper innovatively introduces the results of the World Values Questionnaire to construct the variables of citizens' environmental awareness and quantify the environmental awareness of citizens in different countries.On the basis of the data,this paper chooses 16 countries covered by the World Values Questionnaire from 2000 to 2014 as the research object,and uses panel analysis to test the data.The results show that in recent years,the overall performance of FDI in the surveyed countries is negatively correlated with the host country's carbon emissions,and the improvement of citizens' awareness of environmental protection will significantly reduce their carbon emissions.At the same time,in the countries surveyed,it is found that the interaction between FDI and citizens' awareness of environmental protection has a significant effect on the carbon emissions of the country,but shows a little positive correlation.At the end of the article,based on the results of empirical research,this paper puts forward some suggestions on the introduction of foreign capital,the education of citizens' environmental awareness,the adjustment of energy structure and the coordination between citizens and the government.