How Do the Population Structure Changes of China Affect Carbon Emissions? An Empirical Study Based on Ridge Regression Analysis

Chulin Pan, Huayi Wang, Hongpeng Guo and Hong Pan
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Chulin Pan: College of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun 130022, China
Huayi Wang: College of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun 130022, China
Hongpeng Guo: College of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun 130022, China
Hong Pan: College of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun 130022, China

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 6, 1-16

Abstract: This study focuses on the impact of population structure changes on carbon emissions in China from 1995 to 2018. This paper constructs the multiple regression model and uses the ridge regression to analyze the relationship between population structure changes and carbon emissions from four aspects: population size, population age structure, population consumption structure, and population employment structure. The results showed that these four variables all had a significant impact on carbon emissions in China. The ridge regression analysis confirmed that the population size, population age structure, and population employment structure promoted the increase in carbon emissions, and their contribution ratios were 3.316%, 2.468%, 1.280%, respectively. However, the influence of population consumption structure (−0.667%) on carbon emissions was negative. The results showed that the population size had the greatest impact on carbon emissions, which was the main driving factor of carbon emissions in China. Chinese population will bring huge pressure on the environment and resources in the future. Therefore, based on the comprehensive analysis, implementing the one-child policy will help slow down China’s population growth, control the number of populations, optimize the population structure, so as to reduce carbon emissions. In terms of employment structure and consumption structure, we should strengthen policy guidance and market incentives, raising people’s low-carbon awareness, optimizing energy-consumption structure, improving energy efficiency, so as to effectively control China’s carbon emissions.

Keywords: carbon emissions; population structure; time series; ridge regression; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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