Short and Long Term Analysis of Energy Consumption, Energy Intensity and Carbon Intensity in China

This paper aims to determine the short and long term determinants of carbon intensity, energy intensity and scale effects for China, with data on the provincial level from 1995 to 2010. The results show that measures which are taken to limit carbon emission increase with carbon intensity on the long run. This means that more measures are taken, when more carbon is emitted per unit of output. The results could not show the effectiveness of the treatment on carbon intensity due to limited data availability, especially across time. This means that the effects of the government policies on carbon intensity are not yet visible in the data. For energy intensity and scale, a long run effect is visible and the government policies seem to have a small effect and thus lead to an increase in energy efficiency. On top of that, it appears that some drivers of GDP growth are associated with a decrease in CO2 emission. TFP has a significant negative effect on CO2 in the long run. This suggests that a focus on increasing TFP will help CO2 emissions to go down. Scale and labor growth are shown to cause higher energy intensity in the long run