Search

The idea that energy taxes and innovation may contribute to lowering greenhouse gas emissions and fostering the development of a more sustainable energy future is gaining popularity. Therefore, the study's main goal is to explore the asymmetric impact of energy taxes and innovation on CO2 emissions in China by employing linear and nonlinear ARDL econometric methods. The outcomes of the linear model demonstrate that long-term increases in energy taxes, energy technological innovation, and financial development cause CO2 emissions to reduce, while increases in economic development cause CO2 emissions to climb. Similarly, energy taxes and energy technological innovation cause CO2 emissions to fall in the short run, while financial development promotes CO2 emissions. On the other hand, in the nonlinear model, the positive energy changes, positive energy innovation changes, financial development, and human capital help reduce the long-run CO2 emissions, and economic development increase the CO2 emissions. In the short run, the positive energy and innovation changes are negatively and significantly connected to CO2 emissions, while financial development is positively linked to CO2 emissions. The negative energy innovation changes are insignificant in both the short and long run. Therefore, Chinese policymakers should try to promote energy taxes and innovations as tools to achieve green sustainability., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Regional imbalance in development is amongst the most important challenges for China. As the country’s leading economic engines, three major economic circles representing 6.5% of the national land territory contributed to more than 2/5 of national gross domestic product (GDP). This paper focuses on the impact of these three growth poles in China’s regional development, particularly for their embodied energy uses in light of multi-regional input-output analysis. Significantly, the three developed areas generated huge demands for embodied energy, 1237.52 Mtce and 40.1% of the total domestic supply in 2010, but far from self-sufficient. In Yangtze-River-Delta , Pearl-River-Delta and Jing-Jin-Ji , 93.1%, 85.1% and 63.4% of their embodied energy uses respectively can be traced back to the energy-supply provinces such as Shanxi, Inner Mongolia and Shaanxi and other trade partners. Over a half of the national interregional transfers of embodied energy via domestic trade were induced by the three economic circles’ final demand, largely resulted from their large-scale infrastructure construction, upgraded consumption structures, high export dependency and ongoing urbanization process. The results indicate that demand-driven embodied energy is a comprehensive indicator to reflect the real energy use patterns of developed regions or megacities and reveal their industrial positions in domestic and even global supply chains. Understanding the temporal and spatial energy transition along with regional development from consumption-based insights is a vital step toward appropriately targeted policy making for the nationwide energy saving and emission reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Consumption demands are final drivers for the extraction and allocation of natural resources. This paper investigates demand-driven natural resource requirements and spatial outsourcing within China in 2012 by using the latest multi-regional input-output model. Exergy is adopted as a common metric for natural resources input. The total domestic resource exergy requirements amounted to 125.5 EJ, of which the eastern area contributed the largest share of 44.5%, followed by the western area (23.9%), the central area (23.0%) and the northeastern area (8.6%). Investment was the leading final demand category, accounting for 52.9% (66.4 EJ) of national total embodied resource use (ERU). The total trade volumes of embodied resource were equivalent to 69.6% of the total direct resource input (DRI), mostly transferred from the central and western regions such as Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Shaanxi and Xinjiang to the eastern regions such as Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong and Shanghai. The northeastern and eastern areas had physical net imports of 1213.5 PJ and 38452.6 PJ, while the central and western inland areas had physical net exports of 6364.5 PJ and 33301.5 PJ, respectively. Shanghai, Beijing, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Guangdong had prominent ERUs which respectively were 101.6, 12.6, 11.7, 8.4 and 4.3 times of their DRIs. The ERUs of Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Ningxia and Guizhou were equal to only 17.6%, 25.3%, 27.9%, 46.0% and 50.2% of their DRIs, respectively. Regional uneven development resulted in imbalanced resource requirements across China. The findings can provide a deep understanding of China's resource-driven economic development mode, and contribute to reducing regional resource footprints and their environment outcomes under the "new normal economy". Highlights • Outsourcing resource requirements within China 2012 is systematically revealed. • Exergy is adopted as a common metric for various natural resources input. • 69.6% of national total resource requirements were transferred via domestic trade. • Regional resource use patterns under the "new normal economy" are identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]