Energy Development and Environmental Protection: Dual Challenges for China

1991 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 316-326
Author(s):  
Shen Longhai ◽  
Liu Lujun

China's energy consumption is growing very rapidly and along with this are associated environmental problems. However, as per capita energy consumption in the country remains very low, ways must be found to allow continued rapid energy expansion at lower environmental costs. China stands committed to join global endeavours to met the dual challenges of energy development and environmental protection. This paper reviews China's energy and environment paths an implemented, planned and possible future actions to lessen energy-environmental tradeoffs.

1991 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 327-338
Author(s):  
Deok-Gil Rhee

This paper presents an overview of the energy and environment situation in Korea. Korea is a newly industrializing country with rising affluence and growing environmental problems. Recently the country has stepped up its environmental protection activities with the energy sector being a major target One policy thrust is to increase use of LNG, while another is to require fuel switching and cleaner technology in the transport sector. In addition, the government is undertaking greatly expanded treatment of industrial and municipal wastes.


2021 ◽  
pp. 227868212110022
Author(s):  
Rakesh Shahani ◽  
Aastha Bansal

The article investigates the co-integrating relationship between economic growth, energy, and environment for India and China for the period 1970–2014 (using log transformed yearly data). Whereas gross domestic product per capita is taken as the growth proxy, CO2 emissions per capita represents environmental degradation and fossil fuel consumption is the proxy for energy consumption. The methodology adapted is autoregressive distributed lag “F” Bounds test with single structural break. The results of the study showed that co-integrating relation was established among all the variables except when CO2 (China) is taken as dependent variable. The “error correction model” term was negative and significant in all the cases (except for CO2 China again). Further the speed of adjustment toward equilibrium was highest at 16% per annum (p.a.) for CO2 in India while it was between 3% and 8% p.a. for rest of the variables. Chow breakpoint test even confirmed that India CO2 emissions had a break in 1996.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1600
Author(s):  
Weijiang Liu ◽  
Mingze Du ◽  
Yuxin Bai

As the world’s largest developing country, and as the home to many of the world’s factories, China plays a crucial role in the sustainable development of the world economy regarding environmental protection, energy conservation, and emission reduction issues. Based on the data from 2003–2015, this paper examined the green total factor productivity and the technological progress in the Chinese manufacturing industry. A slack-based measure (SBM) Malmquist productivity index was used to measure the bias of technological change (BTC), input-biased technological change (IBTC), and output-biased technological change (OBTC) by decomposing the technological progress. It also investigated the mechanism of environmental regulation, property right structure, enterprise-scale, energy consumption structure, and other factors on China’s technological progress bias. The empirical results showed the following: (1) there was a bias of technological progress in the Chinese manufacturing industry during the research period; (2) although China’s manufacturing industry’s output tended to become greener, it was still characterized by a preference for overall CO2 output; and (3) the impact of environmental regulations on the Chinese manufacturing industry’s technological progress had a significant threshold effect. The flexible control of environmental regulatory strength will benefit the Chinese manufacturing industry’s technological development. (4) R&D investment, export delivery value, and structure of energy consumption significantly contributed to promoting technological progress. This study provides further insight into the sustainable development of China’s manufacturing sector to promote green-biased technological progress and to achieve the dual goal of environmental protection and healthy economic growth.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (13) ◽  
pp. 3864
Author(s):  
Qiucheng Li ◽  
Jiang Hu ◽  
Bolin Yu

The residential sector has become the second largest energy consumer in China. Urban residential energy consumption (URE) in China is growing rapidly in the process of urbanization. This paper aims to reveal the spatiotemporal dynamic evolution and influencing mechanism of URE in China. The spatiotemporal heterogeneity of URE during 2007–2018 is explored through Kernel density estimation and inequality measures (i.e., Gini coefficient, Theil index, and mean logarithmic deviation). Then, with several advantages over traditional index decomposition analysis approaches, the Generalized Divisia Index Method (GDIM) decomposition is employed to investigate the impacts of eight driving factors on URE. Furthermore, the national and provincial decoupling relationships between URE and residential income increase are studied. It is found that different provinces’ URE present a significant agglomeration effect; the interprovincial inequality in URE increases and then decreases during the study period. The GDIM decomposition results indicate the income effect is the main positive factor driving URE. Besides, urban population, residential area, per capita energy use, and per unit area energy consumption positively influence URE. By contrast, per capita income, energy intensity, and residential density have negative effects on URE. There is evidence that only three decoupling states, i.e., weak decoupling, strong decoupling, and expansive negative decoupling, appear in China during 2007–2018. Specifically, weak decoupling is the dominant state among different regions. Finally, some suggestions are given to speed up the construction of energy-saving cities and promote the decoupling process of residential energy consumption in China. This paper fills some research gaps in urban residential energy research and is important for China’s policymakers.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 1781
Author(s):  
Yu-Chen Zhang ◽  
Deng-Kui Si ◽  
Bing Zhao

As the third-largest SO2 emitter in the world, China is facing mounting domestic and external pressure to tackle the increasingly serious SO2 pollution. Figuring out the convergence and persistence of sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions matters much for environmental policymakers in China. This study mainly utilizes the Fourier quantile unit root test to survey the convergence of the SO2 emissions per capita in 74 cities of China during the period of December 2014 to June 2019, by conducting five traditional unit root tests and a quantile root unit test as a comparative analysis. The empirical results indicate that the SO2 emissions per capita in 72 out of 74 cities in China are convergent in the sample period. The results also suggest that the unit root behavior of the SO2 emissions per capita in these cities is asymmetrically persistent at different quantiles. For the cities with the convergent SO2 emissions, the government should consider the asymmetric mean-reverting pattern of SO2 emissions when implementing environmental protection policies at different stages. For Hefei and Nanjing, the local governments need to enact stricter environmental protection policies to control the emission of sulfur dioxide.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 7650
Author(s):  
Astrida Miceikienė ◽  
Kristina Gesevičienė ◽  
Daiva Rimkuvienė

The reduction of GHG emissions is one of the priorities of the EU countries. The majority of studies show that financial support and environmental taxes are one of the most effective measures for the mitigation of the negative consequences of climate change. The EU countries employ different environmental support measures and environmental taxes to reduce GHG emissions. There is a shortage of new studies on these measures. The aim of the present study is to compare the effectiveness of the environmental support measures of the EU countries with the effectiveness of environmental taxes in relation to the reduction of GHG emissions. This study is characterized by the broad scope of its data analysis and its systematic approach to the EU’s environmental policy measures. An empirical study was performed for the EU countries with the aim of addressing this research problem and substantiating theoretical insights. A total of 27 EU member states from 2009 to 2018 were selected as research samples. The research is based on a cause-and-effect relationship, where the factors affecting environmental pollution (environmental taxes and subsidies) are the cause, and GHG emissions are the effect. Statistical research methods were used in the empirical study: descriptive statistics, the Shapiro–Wilk test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), simple regression and cluster analysis. The results show that the older member countries of the EU, which had directed the financial measures of environmental policy towards a reduction in energy consumption, managed to achieve a greater reduction in GHG emissions compared to the countries which had not applied those measures. The Central and Eastern European countries are characterized by lower environmental taxes and lower expenditure allocated to environmental protection. The countries with a higher GDP per capita have greater GHG emissions that the countries with lower GDP per capita. This is associated with greater consumption, waste, and energy consumption. The study conducted gives rise to a discussion regarding data sufficiency in the assessment and forecasting of GHG emissions and their environmental consequences.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Soumen Rej ◽  
Barnali Nag

Purpose Both energy and education have been positioned as priority objectives under the itinerary of UN development goals. Hence, it is necessary to address the implicit inter relationship between these two development goals in the context of developing nations such as India who are trying to grow in both per capita income and socio economic factors whilst struggling with the challenges of a severe energy supply constrained economy. Design/methodology/approach In the present study, the causal relationship between energy consumption per capita and education index (EI) as a proxy of educational advancement is investigated for India for 1990–2016 using the Johansen-Juselius cointegration test and vector error correction model. Findings The empirical results infer although energy consumption per capita and EI lack short run causality in either direction, existence of unidirectional long run causality from EI to per capita energy consumption is found for India. Further, it is observed that energy consumption per capita takes around four years to respond to unit shock in EI. Research limitations/implications The findings from this study imply that with the advancement of education, a rise in per capita energy consumption requirement can be foreseen on the demand side, and hence, India’s energy policy needs to emphasize further its sustainable energy supply goals to meet this additional demand coming from a population with better education facilities. Originality/value The authors hereby confirm that this manuscript is entirely their own original study and not submitted elsewhere.


Author(s):  
Antonia Gkergki

This paper examines the relationship between the energy consumption and economic growth from 1968 to 2019 in Greece, by employing the vector error-correction model estimation. A series of econometric tests are employed concerning the stationary of the data, and the co-integration and the relationship among the variables during the long- and short-term. The em-pirical results suggest that there is no bidirectional relationship between economic growth and energy consumption. More specifically, GDP per capita does not affect the energy consump-tion of the three primary sources either in the long-term or the short-term. In other words, the economic crisis and its implications for GDP do not affect energy consumption, and they are not responsible for the considerable decrease in energy sources' consumption. On the other hand, the energy consumption of oil and coal negatively affect the GDP per capita. These re-sults are different from previous studies' conclusions for Greece; this is because the never been experienced before. These findings raise new research questions and also show the limi-tations of the Greek market, as it is regulated and controlled by the government.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuti Haldar ◽  
Gautam Sharma

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the impacts of urbanization on per capita energy consumption and emissions in India. Design/methodology/approach The present study analyses the effects of urbanization on energy consumption patterns by using the Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence and Technology in India. Time series data from the period of 1960 to 2015 has been considered for the analysis. Variables including Population, GDP per capita, Energy intensity, share of industry in GDP, share of Services in GDP, total energy use and urbanization from World Bank data sources have been used for investigating the relationship between urbanization, affluence and energy use. Findings Energy demand is positively related to affluence (economic growth). Further the results of the analysis also suggest that, as urbanization, GDP and population are bound to increase in the future, consequently resulting in increased carbon dioxide emissions caused by increased energy demand and consumption. Thus, reducing the energy intensity is key to energy security and lower carbon dioxide emissions for India. Research limitations/implications The study will have important policy implications for India’s energy sector transition toward non- conventional, clean energy sources in the wake of growing share of its population residing in urban spaces. Originality/value There are limited number of studies considering the impacts of population density on per capita energy use. So this study also contributes methodologically by establishing per capita energy use as a function of population density and technology (i.e. growth rates of industrial and service sector).


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