Search

This paper presents a decomposition analysis of energy-related CO2 emission in China for the period 1991–2006 divided into three equal time intervals. The complete decomposition method developed by Sun is used to analyze the nature of the four factors: CO2 intensity, energy intensity, structural changes and economic activity. The results show that economic activity has the largest positive effect in CO2 emission changes in all the major economic sectors and China has achieved a considerable decrease in CO2 emission mainly due to the improved energy intensity. However, the impact of CO2 intensity and structural changes is relatively small. Structural changes only exhibit positive effect to the CO2 mitigation in agricultural sector, and CO2 intensity also contributes to the decrease of CO2 emission in transportation sector. Moreover, a formula about CO2 mitigation is presented in this paper, which shows that China has made a significant contribution to reducing global CO2 emission. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper examines the extent and the determinants of global climate change beliefs. In contrast to former studies for the U.S. and other western countries, we focus on China due to its crucial role in international climate policy in conjunction with its vulnerability to global warming. The empirical analysis is based on unique data from a survey among more than 1000 adults in five Chinese cities. In line with former studies, our results reveal that the vast majority of almost 90% of the Chinese respondents believes in the existence of global warming. This seems to be a convenient and necessary basis for the support of costly public adaptation activities in China. Our econometric analysis reveals that already perceived experiences with extreme weather events (and particularly heatwaves) alone are strongly correlated with climate change beliefs and that physical or financial damages due to these events lead to even stronger relationships. Our estimation results additionally suggest females as well as people with a lower education, in medium ages, with higher household incomes, and from Chengdu or Shenyang to be more skeptical toward the existence of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]