The Impact Of Population Aging On Regional Carbon Emissions And Its Mechanism

According to the IPCC 2022 report,people increasingly attribute a series of problems caused by climate change to human factors,among which the problems caused by population aging are particularly prominent.As a large country with a large population,China has the largest elderly population,although the degree of aging has not yet reached the level of developed countries,and the continuous deepening of population aging has already had an impact on China’s economy and society.On the one hand,the deepening of population aging means the continuous reduction of demographic dividend and challenges to industrial structure and technological innovation;on the other hand,the high savings rate due to the traditional consumption concept makes China’s consumption weak,both of which may have an impact on China’s carbon dioxide emissions.In the long run,China’s population aging will continue to deepen,but China’s carbon peak and carbon neutral target commitment to achieve as scheduled,at the same time,in the report of the 20 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China,it is also clearly pointed out that we should actively and steadily promote carbon peak and carbon neutral,and actively participate in the global governance of climate change.Therefore,in formulating the roadmap to reduce carbon emissions and achieve carbon neutrality,how to cope with and mitigate the impact caused by the aging population,and actively promote the dual carbon goal as scheduled,has become a topic of concern.Based on this,this thesis compares various possible ways of the impact of aging on carbon emissions at the theoretical level and conducts empirical tests using Chinese provincial panel data from 2005 to 2019,and draws the following conclusions.First,by combing through the relevant literature,this thesis firstly clarifies the current status and shortcomings of the research on population aging and carbon emissions,and the related concepts of population aging and carbon emissions;secondly,based on the relevant theories,this thesis analyzes the impact mechanism of population aging on carbon emissions from both production and consumption levels.This thesis clarifies the direction and lays the foundation for the research of the article.Secondly,this thesis examines the direct effect of population aging on carbon dioxide emissions using Chinese provincial panel data from 2005-2019,and draws the following conclusions:(1)The results of the baseline regression show that population aging has a significant inhibitory effect on carbon emissions,and other control variables such as urbanization rate and population size significantly affect carbon dioxide emissions,and the direction of the effect is consistent with expectations.(2)The regression results of threshold effect show that there is a single threshold for the effect of population aging on carbon emissions,with a threshold value of-2.7108,and the effect of population aging on carbon emissions will be stronger when the degree of population aging exceeds this threshold value.(3)The robustness results show that the effect of population aging on carbon emissions remains significant after replacing the core explanatory variable from the percentage of elderly population aged 65 and above to the elderly dependency ratio.Third,this thesis explores the mechanism of the effect of population aging on carbon dioxide emissions using Chinese provincial panel data from 2005-2019,and draws the following conclusions:(1)The results of the mediating effect test show that the mediating effects of technological progress,industrial structure,consumption level and consumption structure of population aging are significant,and from the production side,population aging will aggravate carbon emissions by promoting technological progress and thus also by The difference is that there is a masking effect between the variables of technological progress and consumption level,while there is only a mediating effect of industrial structure upgrading and a partial mediating effect of consumption structure.(2)The results of regional heterogeneity test show that the mediating effect of technological progress is not significant in eastern,central and western regions,while the mediating effect of industrial structure and consumption structure is significant in eastern and central regions,and the mediating effect of consumption level is significant in eastern and western regions.(3)Robustness tests using the Sobel method and replacing core explanatory variables,respectively,both proved the robustness of the results.Finally,according to the theoretical analysis and empirical results,this paper puts forward the following policy recommendations : First,promote technological innovation and personnel training go hand in hand,and actively respond to labor shortages;second,vigorously develop the health care industry and promote the optimization and upgrading of industrial structure;third,change the concept of elderly consumption,expand the green consumer market;the fourth is to implement policies in different regions to promote orderly emission reduction and carbon reduction in various regions.In order to successfully achieve the dual carbon goal.