Decoupling between Economic Growth and Carbon Emissions: Based on Four Major Regions in China

Abstract

This paper constructs a decoupling model for four major economic regions of China, based on the Tapio decoupling index method and VAR model for carbon emissions to compare and measure the impact of decoupling between carbon emissions and economic growth in China during 1997 to 2019. The results show that the degree of decoupling between economic growth and carbon emissions varies among different economic regions, and the decoupling status is better in all regions at the beginning of the 21st century. In general, the decoupling status in the eastern and western regions is more ideal than that in the central and northeastern regions. The impulse response and variance decomposition results show that renewable energy consumption could always reduce the growth of carbon emission intensity, and its effects are most significant in the western region. The above findings help to reveal the link between economic growth, renewable energy consumption and carbon emissions in China in recent years, and how to ensure a stable economic growth in China while increasing the share of clean energy consumption in each region to achieve carbon neutrality.

Decoupling Economic Growth from Carbon Emissions in the Yangtze River Economic Belt of China: From the Coordinated Regional Development Perspective

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Analysis of Carbon Emission Projections and Reduction Potential of Resource-Dependent Urban Agglomerations from the Perspective of Multiple Scenarios—A Case Study of Hu-Bao-O-Yu Urban Agglomeration

“…Referring to the current academic research on the influencing factors of carbon emissions, the main impact factors of carbon emissions in cities and urban agglomerations include economic growth, industry structure, energy consumption, population, technology innovation, and environmental regulation. Most scholars consider that economic growth is the main driver of carbon emission increase, directly affecting the carbon emission intensity from the transportation sector, electricity supply, and other sectors [48][49][50]. Technology innovation can promote the advancement of new energy technologies and the continuous reduction in usage costs, promote the efficient and clean use of coal as well as the green and low-carbon transformation, and significantly increase the proportion of clean energy represented by hydropower, wind power, nuclear energy, and photovoltaic energy, thus continuously promoting the reduction in energy intensity and the optimisation of the energy structure [51,52].…”

Linking foreign investment and eco-innovation to sustainable development goals through a spatial mediation-moderation model

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