IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eep/report/rr2010126.html

Changes in China's Energy Intensity: Origins and Implications for Long-Term Carbon Emissions and Climate Policies

Author

Listed:
  • Jing Cao

    (Harvard China Project, Harvard University Center for the Environment and School of Economics and Management Tsinghua University, Beijing)

  • Mun S. Ho

    (Harvard China Project, Harvard University Center for the Environment and School of Economics and Management Tsinghua University, Beijing)

Abstract

Since the economic reforms that began in 1978, China has experienced a dramatic decline in energy intensity but in 2002 it flattened out and even rose slightly. There have been considerable debates about the origins of this dramatic decline in energy intensity before the year 2000: is this decline mostly due to changes in the composition of economic activity? (structural change) or is it mostly due to changes in technology? (energy per ton of steel, for example). However, very few studies have examined the slightly rising energy intensity trend for the post-2000 period. In this report, we use a new time-series input-output data set from 1981– 2007 to decompose the reduction in energy use into technical change and various types of structural change, including changes in the quantity and composition of imports and exports. We use two different decomposition methodologies: Structural Decomposition Analysis (SDA) and Index Decomposition Analysis (IDA) methods. Based on these estimates of changes in energy intensity, we project Autonomous Energy Efficiency Improvement (AEEI) parameters in forecasting future capital, labor and energy input shares of output for each industry. We then construct a recursive-dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model of the Chinese economy to analyze both command-and-control policies and carbon taxes, and provide policy recommendations on how China could pursue a more sustainable development trajectory to deal with greenhouse gas emissions.

Suggested Citation

  • Jing Cao & Mun S. Ho, 2010. "Changes in China's Energy Intensity: Origins and Implications for Long-Term Carbon Emissions and Climate Policies," EEPSEA Research Report rr2010126, Economy and Environment Program for Southeast Asia (EEPSEA), revised Dec 2010.
    • Handle: RePEc:eep:report:rr2010126
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.eepsea.org/pub/rr/2010-RR12-Jing%20Cao%20and%20Mun%20S%20HO.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2010
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:aen:journl:1999v20-03-a03 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Williams, Robert H., 1987. "A low energy future for the United States," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 12(10), pages 929-944.
    3. Ang, B. W., 2004. "Decomposition analysis for policymaking in energy:: which is the preferred method?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(9), pages 1131-1139, June.
    4. Mun S. Ho & Chris P. Nielsen (ed.), 2007. "Clearing the Air: The Health and Economic Damages of Air Pollution in China," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262083582, December.
    5. Ma, Chunbo & Stern, David I., 2008. "China's changing energy intensity trend: A decomposition analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 1037-1053, May.
    6. Jefferson, Gary H. & Rawski, Thomas G. & Zheng, Yuxin, 1996. "Chinese Industrial Productivity: Trends, Measurement Issues, and Recent Developments," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 146-180, October.
    7. Polenske, Karen R. & Lin, Xiannuan, 1993. "Conserving energy to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in China," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 249-265, December.
    8. Huang, Jin-ping, 1993. "Industry energy use and structural change : A case study of The People's Republic of China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 131-136, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jing CAO, 2010. "Reconciling Economic Growth and Carbon Mitigation: Challenges and Policy Options in China," Asian Economic Policy Review, Japan Center for Economic Research, vol. 5(1), pages 110-129, June.

    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. Xu, X.Y. & Ang, B.W., 2014. "Multilevel index decomposition analysis: Approaches and application," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 375-382.
    2. Lin, Boqiang & Du, Kerui, 2013. "Technology gap and China's regional energy efficiency: A parametric metafrontier approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 529-536.
    3. Vaninsky, Alexander, 2014. "Factorial decomposition of CO2 emissions: A generalized Divisia index approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 389-400.
    4. Ma, Hengyun & Oxley, Les & Gibson, John, 2010. "China's energy economy: A survey of the literature," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 105-132, June.
    5. Ma, Chunbo, 2010. "Account for sector heterogeneity in China's energy consumption: Sector price indices vs. GDP deflator," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 24-29, January.
    6. Wu, Yanrui, 2012. "Energy intensity and its determinants in China's regional economies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 703-711.
    7. Zhao, Xiaoli & Ma, Chunbo & Hong, Dongyue, 2010. "Why did China's energy intensity increase during 1998-2006: Decomposition and policy analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 1379-1388, March.
    8. Yang Yu & Qiuyue Kong, 2017. "Analysis on the influencing factors of carbon emissions from energy consumption in China based on LMDI method," 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. 88(3), pages 1691-1707, September.
    9. Yang, Guangfei & Li, Wenli & Wang, Jianliang & Zhang, Dongqing, 2016. "A comparative study on the influential factors of China's provincial energy intensity," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 74-85.
    10. Seck, Gondia Sokhna & Guerassimoff, Gilles & Maïzi, Nadia, 2016. "Analysis of the importance of structural change in non-energy intensive industry for prospective modelling: The French case," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 114-124.
    11. Löschel, Andreas & Pothen, Frank & Schymura, Michael, 2015. "Peeling the onion: Analyzing aggregate, national and sectoral energy intensity in the European Union," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(S1), pages 63-75.
    12. Zheng, Yingmei & Qi, Jianhong & Chen, Xiaoliang, 2011. "The effect of increasing exports on industrial energy intensity in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 2688-2698, May.
    13. Li, Aijun & Hu, Mingming & Wang, Mingjian & Cao, Yinxue, 2016. "Energy consumption and CO2 emissions in Eastern and Central China: A temporal and a cross-regional decomposition analysis," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 284-297.
    14. Zheng, Jiali & Mi, Zhifu & Coffman, D'Maris & Milcheva, Stanimira & Shan, Yuli & Guan, Dabo & Wang, Shouyang, 2019. "Regional development and carbon emissions in China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 25-36.
    15. Hong, Junjie & Shi, Fangyuan & Zheng, Yuhan, 2023. "Does network infrastructure construction reduce energy intensity? Based on the “Broadband China” strategy," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    16. Ma, Chunbo, 2014. "A multi-fuel, multi-sector and multi-region approach to index decomposition: An application to China's energy consumption 1995–2010," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 9-16.
    17. Lizhan Cao & Hui Wang, 2022. "The Slowdown in China’s Energy Consumption Growth in the “New Normal” Stage: From Both National and Regional Perspectives," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-21, April.
    18. Liu, Hongxun & Du, Kerui & Li, Jianglong, 2019. "An improved approach to estimate direct rebound effect by incorporating energy efficiency: A revisit of China's industrial energy demand," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 720-730.
    19. repec:aen:journl:ej37-si1-zhang is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Wang, Zhiping & Feng, Chao & Chen, Jinyu & Huang, Jianbai, 2017. "The driving forces of material use in China: An index decomposition analysis," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 336-348.
    21. Jidong Kang & Tao Zhao & Xiaosong Ren & Tao Lin, 2012. "Using decomposition analysis to evaluate the performance of China’s 30 provinces in CO 2 emission reductions over 2005–2009," 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. 64(2), pages 999-1013, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:eep:report:rr2010126. 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: Arief Anshory yusuf (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eepsesg.html .

    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.