China’s Contributions to Global Green Energy and Low-Carbon Development: Empirical Evidence under the Belt and Road Framework

Hongze Li, FengYun Li and Xinhua Yu
Additional contact information
Hongze Li: School of Economics and Management, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China
FengYun Li: School of Economics and Management, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China
Xinhua Yu: School of Economics and Management, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China

Energies, 2018, vol. 11, issue 6, 1-32

Abstract: This paper aims to explore China’s contributions to global green energy and low-carbon (GELC) development based on the Belt and Road (B&R) Initiative. Basic situations of B&R countries reveal an urgent requirement for developing green energy. Carbon intensity is an efficient indicator reflecting the degree of GELC development, which is affected by many factors. By analyzing the spatial distribution of carbon intensities in 29 B&R countries excluding China, the spatial agglomeration and positive radiation effects are discovered, while the negative radiation effects are disappearing, indicating that the studied B&R countries lack an effective driving mechanism to promote GELC development. Besides, the spatial convergence results support significant absolute and conditional convergences in the 29 B&R countries, and a faster convergence speed when considering control variables. Therefore, B&R countries trend to converge to a steady stable carbon intensity to achieve the GELC development. Furthermore, the investment rate and openness play a driving role in pushing the decrease of carbon intensity growth rate, revealing that the B&R Initiative can promote reducing the global carbon emissions and developing global green energy. Moreover, the carbon intensity of the country will be positively affected by those of the surrounding areas, indicating that reducing carbon emission is a global governance issue requiring the participation of all countries. Finally, several policy suggestions are proposed to promote the global GELC development under B&R framework, according to the empirical findings.

Keywords: green energy and low-carbon development; China’s contributions; Belt and Road framework; spatial panel econometric methods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/11/6/1527/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/11/6/1527/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:11:y:2018:i:6:p:1527-:d:152099

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().