Study on the Regional Difference, Dynamic Evolution and Influencing Factors for China’s Carbon emissions

This paper aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of China’s carbon emissions evolution from the “10 th Five-Year” Plan period to the “13 th Five-Year” Plan period from the perspectives of “east, center and west” and with multiple methods and viewpoints, and to vividly display the relationship between carbon emissions and economic growth with half-parameter method. Kernel density estimation, quadrantal diagram and box plots were utilized in this paper to analyze the carbon emissions evolution process in three major regions in China and various provinces, and Dagum Gini coefficient and decomposition method were applied to study the regional difference and source of carbon emissions. Then, the half-parameter estimation – generalized additive model was adopted to study the non-linear relationship between carbon emissions and economic growth. The results showed that the carbon emissions in entire China and the eastern, central and western regions grew year after year, but the growth rate decreased. The carbon emissions evolution processes in the eastern, central and western regions featured variably; the difference in carbon emissions expanded in general and inter-regional difference was the main cause for the general difference, which declined significantly during the observation. Since 2011, the intensity of trans-variation has become the major source of the general difference. The impact of economic growth on carbon emissions differed in different regions and control variables led to different carbon emissions effects in different regions. Fully reviewing the evolution characteristics and laws of carbon emissions in the three major regions in China, this paper provides research support for refined and efficient low carbon emissions policy-making and decision-making reference for realizing the “dual carbon” objective: “carbon peaking” and “carbon neutralization” in an all-round way.