Does The Development Of Renewable Energy Promote Carbon Reduction?

Renewable energy is a core element of current climate change,energy security and sustainable development strategies.In order to promote China’s energy production and consumption revolution and the “clean,low-carbon,safe and efficient” energy structure transformation,the government pointed out that it is necessary to promote the development and utilization of renewable energy and accelerate the replacement process of fossil energy.Therefore,inspired by the policy,China’s renewable energy industry has developed rapidly,and the level of development and utilization has been greatly improved in recent years.At the same time,under the concept of mitigating the impact of climate change and emphasizing the development of a low-carbon economy pattern,China has formulated a series of energy-saving emission reduction policies and related commitments achieving the goal of “12th Five-Year Plan” carbon intensity reduction ahead of schedule.Based on the response to global climate change and the promotion of the energy revolution,this paper uses the data of 30 provinces and cities across the country to empirically analyze the real relationship between renewable energy development and carbon intensity.Firstly,the key factors affecting carbon intensity were identified by path analysis method.On this basis,the direct and indirect effects of renewable energy development on carbon intensity were segmented,and then the sensitivity of carbon intensity to renewable energy development under different carbon intensity distributions were tested by panel quantile regression model.The results show that:(1)The improvement of China’s renewable energy development level is conducive to further reduction of carbon emissions.The development of renewable energy can directly and negatively affect carbon intensity,meanwhile it has direct impacts on carbon intensity mainly through GDP per capita and energy intensity.(2)China’s renewable energy has a relatively limited inhibitory effect on carbon intensity.Specially,the carbon intensity will decrease by 0.084%~0.149% for every 1% increase in renewable energy generation.(3)Renewable energy development has a greater impact on carbon intensity in regions with higher and lower carbon intensity than in areas with intermediate carbon intensity.(4)Carbon intensity is always the most sensitive to changes in energy intensity.Per capita GDP,urbanization rate,industrial structure,and energy structure are also important factors affecting China’s carbon intensity.Energy intensity and industrial structure are significantly positively correlated with carbon intensity,while other factors have negative and significant impacts on carbon intensity.At the same time,under different carbon intensity levels,the energy intensity has the greatest impact on carbon intensity.Besides,both energy intensity and urbanization rate have greater impact on carbon intensity in areas with higher carbon intensity,while per capita GDP and industrial structure,the elastic effects of which are stronger at both ends of the carbon intensity distribution than at the intermediate position.However,the effect of energy structure almost has no significant change in regions with different carbon intensity levels.Based on the above findings,this paper also proposes recommendations for further promoting the effective development of renewable energy and achieving carbon intensity in the next phase of binding targets.