IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v119y2015icp209-216.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can China achieve its carbon intensity target by 2020 while sustaining economic growth?

Author

Listed:
  • Zhu, Bangzhu
  • Wang, Kefan
  • Chevallier, Julien
  • Wang, Ping
  • Wei, Yi-Ming

Abstract

In 2009, the Chinese government announced its carbon intensity target for 2020. Can China achieve this carbon intensity while sustaining economic growth? To address this essential issue, the contributions of this study lie in three aspects. First, we quantitatively capture the relationship between China's economic growth and energy consumption using the cointegration theory, and predict China's energy consumption by 2020 according to different economic growth targets. Second, we forecast China's energy structure in 2020 using compositional data and ARIMA models under different scenarios. Third, we deduce China's CO2 emission and carbon intensity in 2020. Furthermore, we investigate whether (or not) China can realize the carbon intensity target in premise of ensuring economic growth, and evaluate the contribution of the energy structure's adjustment to meeting this target. Finally, we put forward some relevant policy implications for achieving China's carbon intensity target.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhu, Bangzhu & Wang, Kefan & Chevallier, Julien & Wang, Ping & Wei, Yi-Ming, 2015. "Can China achieve its carbon intensity target by 2020 while sustaining economic growth?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 209-216.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:119:y:2015:i:c:p:209-216
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2015.08.015
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800915003638
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2015.08.015?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yang, Chi-Jen & Zhou, Yipei & Jackson, Robert B., 2014. "China's fuel gas sector: History, current status, and future prospects," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 12-21.
    2. Geem, Zong Woo & Roper, William E., 2009. "Energy demand estimation of South Korea using artificial neural network," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(10), pages 4049-4054, October.
    3. Gao, Cuixia & Sun, Mei & Shen, Bo & Li, Ranran & Tian, Lixin, 2014. "Optimization of China's energy structure based on portfolio theory," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 890-897.
    4. Lu, Yingying & Stegman, Alison & Cai, Yiyong, 2013. "Emissions intensity targeting: From China's 12th Five Year Plan to its Copenhagen commitment," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 1164-1177.
    5. Xie, Shi-Chen, 2014. "The driving forces of China׳s energy use from 1992 to 2010: An empirical study of input–output and structural decomposition analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 401-415.
    6. Li, Hong-qiang & Wang, Li-mao & Shen, Lei & Chen, Feng-nan, 2012. "Study of the potential of low carbon energy development and its contribution to realize the reduction target of carbon intensity in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 393-401.
    7. Yu, Shiwei & Wei, Yi-Ming & Wang, Ke, 2012. "A PSO–GA optimal model to estimate primary energy demand of China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 329-340.
    8. Zhang, Youguo, 2009. "Structural decomposition analysis of sources of decarbonizing economic development in China; 1992-2006," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(8-9), pages 2399-2405, June.
    9. Kankal, Murat & AkpInar, Adem & Kömürcü, Murat Ihsan & Özsahin, Talat Sükrü, 2011. "Modeling and forecasting of Turkey's energy consumption using socio-economic and demographic variables," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(5), pages 1927-1939, May.
    10. Engle, Robert & Granger, Clive, 2015. "Co-integration and error correction: Representation, estimation, and testing," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 39(3), pages 106-135.
    11. Yuan, Jiahai & Hou, Yong & Xu, Ming, 2012. "China's 2020 carbon intensity target: Consistency, implementations, and policy implications," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 16(7), pages 4970-4981.
    12. Liu, Liwei & Zong, Haijing & Zhao, Erdong & Chen, Chuxiang & Wang, Jianzhou, 2014. "Can China realize its carbon emission reduction goal in 2020: From the perspective of thermal power development," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 199-212.
    13. Stern, David I. & Jotzo, Frank, 2010. "How ambitious are China and India's emissions intensity targets?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(11), pages 6776-6783, November.
    14. Wang, Run & Liu, Wenjuan & Xiao, Lishan & Liu, Jian & Kao, William, 2011. "Path towards achieving of China's 2020 carbon emission reduction target--A discussion of low-carbon energy policies at province level," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 2740-2747, May.
    15. Cui, Lian-Biao & Fan, Ying & Zhu, Lei & Bi, Qing-Hua, 2014. "How will the emissions trading scheme save cost for achieving China’s 2020 carbon intensity reduction target?," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 1043-1052.
    16. Yi, Wen-Jing & Zou, Le-Le & Guo, Jie & Wang, Kai & Wei, Yi-Ming, 2011. "How can China reach its CO2 intensity reduction targets by 2020? A regional allocation based on equity and development," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 2407-2415, May.
    17. Fan, Ying & Liu, Lan-Cui & Wu, Gang & Tsai, Hsien-Tang & Wei, Yi-Ming, 2007. "Changes in carbon intensity in China: Empirical findings from 1980-2003," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(3-4), pages 683-691, May.
    18. Zhang, Ming & Mu, Hailin & Ning, Yadong & Song, Yongchen, 2009. "Decomposition of energy-related CO2 emission over 1991-2006 in China," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(7), pages 2122-2128, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ning, Yadong & Chen, Kunkun & Zhang, Boya & Ding, Tao & Guo, Fei & Zhang, Ming, 2020. "Energy conservation and emission reduction path selection in China: A simulation based on Bi-Level multi-objective optimization model," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    2. Wang, Juan & Hu, Mingming & Tukker, Arnold & Rodrigues, João F.D., 2019. "The impact of regional convergence in energy-intensive industries on China's CO2 emissions and emission goals," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 512-523.
    3. Rodríguez, Miguel & Pena-Boquete, Yolanda, 2017. "Carbon intensity changes in the Asian Dragons. Lessons for climate policy design," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 17-26.
    4. Zhu, Bangzhu & Ye, Shunxin & Jiang, Minxing & Wang, Ping & Wu, Zhanchi & Xie, Rui & Chevallier, Julien & Wei, Yi-Ming, 2019. "Achieving the carbon intensity target of China: A least squares support vector machine with mixture kernel function approach," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 233, pages 196-207.
    5. Yuan, Jiahai & Hou, Yong & Xu, Ming, 2012. "China's 2020 carbon intensity target: Consistency, implementations, and policy implications," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 16(7), pages 4970-4981.
    6. Ying Wang & Peipei Shang & Lichun He & Yingchun Zhang & Dandan Liu, 2018. "Can China Achieve the 2020 and 2030 Carbon Intensity Targets through Energy Structure Adjustment?," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-32, October.
    7. Ping Wang & Bangzhu Zhu, 2016. "Estimating the Contribution of Industry Structure Adjustment to the Carbon Intensity Target: A Case of Guangdong," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-11, April.
    8. Xie, Rui & Wang, Fangfang & Chevallier, Julien & Zhu, Bangzhu & Zhao, Guomei, 2018. "Supply-side structural effects of air pollutant emissions in China: A comparative analysis," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 89-95.
    9. Anderson, Blake & M'Gonigle, Michael, 2012. "Does ecological economics have a future?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 37-48.
    10. Cheng, Beibei & Dai, Hancheng & Wang, Peng & Xie, Yang & Chen, Li & Zhao, Daiqing & Masui, Toshihiko, 2016. "Impacts of low-carbon power policy on carbon mitigation in Guangdong Province, China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 515-527.
    11. Wang, Yafei & Liang, Sai, 2013. "Carbon dioxide mitigation target of China in 2020 and key economic sectors," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 90-96.
    12. Xuankai Deng & Yanhua Yu & Yanfang Liu, 2015. "Temporal and Spatial Variations in Provincial CO 2 Emissions in China from 2005 to 2015 and Assessment of a Reduction Plan," Energies, MDPI, vol. 8(5), pages 1-23, May.
    13. Yue-Jun Zhang & Zhao Liu & Huan Zhang & Tai-De Tan, 2014. "The impact of economic growth, industrial structure and urbanization on carbon emission intensity in China," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 73(2), pages 579-595, September.
    14. Zhang, Youguo, 2010. "Supply-side structural effect on carbon emissions in China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 186-193, January.
    15. Wang, Qunwei & Chiu, Yung-Ho & Chiu, Ching-Ren, 2015. "Driving factors behind carbon dioxide emissions in China: A modified production-theoretical decomposition analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 252-260.
    16. Rodríguez, Miguel, 2022. "Why do many prospective analyses of CO2 emissions fail? An illustrative example from China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 244(PB).
    17. Ma-Lin Song & Yuan-Xiang Zhou, 2015. "Analysis of Carbon Emissions and Their Influence Factors Based on Data from Anhui of China," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 46(3), pages 359-374, October.
    18. Song, Yi & Huang, Jianbai & Zhang, Yijun & Wang, Zhiping, 2019. "Drivers of metal consumption in China: An input-output structural decomposition analysis," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 1-1.
    19. Shi Wang & Hua Wang & Li Zhang & Jun Dang, 2019. "Provincial Carbon Emissions Efficiency and Its Influencing Factors in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-21, April.
    20. Chuyu Xia & Yan Li & Yanmei Ye & Zhou Shi & Jingming Liu, 2017. "Decomposed Driving Factors of Carbon Emissions and Scenario Analyses of Low-Carbon Transformation in 2020 and 2030 for Zhejiang Province," Energies, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-16, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:119:y:2015:i:c:p:209-216. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.