Evaluating the relationships among economic growth, energy consumption, air emissions and air environmental protection investment in China

Xiaohong Zhang, Liqian Wu, Rong Zhang, Shihuai Deng, Yanzong Zhang, Jun Wu, Yuanwei Li, Lili Lin, Li Li, Yinjun Wang and Lilin Wang

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2013, vol. 18, issue C, 259-270

Abstract: This paper analyzed the interactions among China’s economic growth and its energy consumption, air emissions and air environmental protection investment during 2000–2007. Conventional energy and emergy are applied to quantify energy consumption and emissions’ impact, respectively. The five indicators based on money, energy and emergy, including ratio of nonrenewable energy to renewable energy (RNR), energy use per unit GDP (EUPG), environmental cost per unit GDP (ECPG), impact of emissions per unit energy consumption (IEPEC), and environmental benefit per unit environmental protection investment (EBPEI), are presented to depict the relationships among economic growth and energy consumption and impact of air emissions and air environmental protection investment. The results show that energy consumption rapidly rises with China’s fast economic growth; however, energy efficiency and environmental loading intensity from energy consumption are reduced simultaneously but their improvements fall far behind economic growth rate. Impact of air emissions, mainly composed of impact of emissions on human health (especially dust), is slightly decreased. The performance of air environmental protection investment is obviously declined in the study period. Generally speaking, the conflict among economy, energy and air environment protection is slightly mitigated but still acute due to great dependence of China’s economy on fossil energy and inefficient environmental protection measures. Finally, this paper discusses the corresponding issues, and then puts forward some related suggestions.

Keywords: China; Economic growth; Energy consumption; Emergy; Impact of air emissions; Air environmental protection investment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (50)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2012.10.029

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