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Abstract: This paper analyzed the interactions among China’s economic growth and its energy consumption, air emissions and air environmental protection investment during 2000–2007. Conventional energy and emergy are applied to quantify energy consumption and emissions’ impact, respectively. The five indicators based on money, energy and emergy, including ratio of nonrenewable energy to renewable energy (RNR), energy use per unit GDP (EUPG), environmental cost per unit GDP (ECPG), impact of emissions per unit energy consumption (IEPEC), and environmental benefit per unit environmental protection investment (EBPEI), are presented to depict the relationships among economic growth and energy consumption and impact of air emissions and air environmental protection investment. The results show that energy consumption rapidly rises with China’s fast economic growth; however, energy efficiency and environmental loading intensity from energy consumption are reduced simultaneously but their improvements fall far behind economic growth rate. Impact of air emissions, mainly composed of impact of emissions on human health (especially dust), is slightly decreased. The performance of air environmental protection investment is obviously declined in the study period. Generally speaking, the conflict among economy, energy and air environment protection is slightly mitigated but still acute due to great dependence of China’s economy on fossil energy and inefficient environmental protection measures. Finally, this paper discusses the corresponding issues, and then puts forward some related suggestions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Renewable energy is an important factor in achieving a low-carbon economic development path in China. This paper investigates the factors influencing renewable electricity consumption in China. Specifically, the factors that influence the share of renewable electricity in total electricity consumption in China is investigated using data from 1980 to 2011 and employing the Johansen cointegration technique and vector error correction model. The result of the analysis shows that there is a long run relationship between renewable electricity consumption and GDP per capita, trade openness, foreign direct investment, financial development and share of fossil fuel in energy consumption. Economic development and financial development promotes renewable electricity consumption while foreign direct investment, trade openness and the lobby of conventional energy sources undermine the share of renewables in total electricity consumption in China. While the effects of shocks to the other variables appear to die out over time, the “lobby effect” is persistent and explosive. The results also show that there is a uni-directional short run causality from financial development to renewable electricity consumption and from renewable electricity consumption to trade openness. The Chinese government should pursue policies that not only increase the amount of renewable electricity, but also increase the share of renewables in total electricity consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between renewable energy consumption and economic growth in China for the period 1977–2011. Autoregressive Distributed Lag approach (ARDL) to cointegration and Johansen cointegration techniques are employed by including intermittent variables namely carbon dioxide emissions and labor. We also employed Granger causality test in order to determine the direction of the causality among the variables. The results show that there is a bi-directional long term causality between renewable energy consumption and economic growth. This finding implies that growing economy in China is propitious for the development of renewable energy sector which in turn helps to boost economic growth. We also find that labor influences renewable energy consumption in the short term. However, there is no evidence of long or short run causality between carbon emissions and renewable energy consumption. This implies that actual level of renewable energy in China is still insignificant and not considerably exploited in order to contribute to the mitigation of carbon dioxide emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The interplays among economy and energy and environment have been widely concerned. This paper put forward several indicators to quantify the relationships among economic growth and energy consumption and CO2 emission. As an example, these indicators were applied to evaluate the comprehensive performances of China during 1990–2007. The results show that Chinese people has been living a better life with Chinese rapid economic growth but not synchronously in urban and rural areas. Non-carbon energy resources share has increased; however, fossil energy resources have still acted as the main driver for Chinese economic growth during this period. Technical progress has improved the fossil energy efficiency of Chinese economic activity, which leads to CO2 emission per unit GDP and CO2 emission per capita unit GDP dropping simultaneously; however, the two indicators’ annual decline rates become smaller and smaller, which reflects that technical progress’ role is dropping and economic scale''s effect is climbing. People''s survival has a rising contribution to CO2 emission. CO2 emission per capita has increased, which shows that economic scale has greater impact on CO2 emission than technical progress does. Relatively speaking, Chinese development patterns have become more and more sustainable during this period. Finally, based on the related issues being discussed, some corresponding suggestions are put forward for Chinese government to further coordinate the relationship among economic development and energy consumption and CO2 emission. The proposed indicators can form a set of useful tool for policy-makers to promote the harmonious development of economy and energy and environment in different regions and countries. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Along with high-speed economic development and increasing energy consumption, the Chinese Government faces a growing pressure to maintain the balance between energy supply and demand. In 2009, China has become both the largest energy consumer and CO2 emitting country in the world. In this case, the inappropriate energy consumption structure should be changed. As an alternative, a suitable infrastructure for the implementation of renewable energy may serve as a long-term sustainable solution. The perspective of a 100% renewable energy system has been analyzed and discussed in some countries previously. In this process, assessment of domestic renewable energy sources is the first step. Then appropriate methodologies are needed to perform energy system analyses involving the integration of more sustainable strategies. Denmark may serve as an example of how sustainable strategies can be implemented. The Danish system has demonstrated the possibility of converting into a 100% renewable energy system. This paper discusses the perspective of renewable energy in China firstly, and then analyses whether it is suitable to adopt similar methodologies applied in other countries as China approaches a renewable energy system. The conclusion is that China’s domestic renewable energy sources are abundant and show the possibility to cover future energy demand; the methodologies used to analyse a 100% renewable energy system are applicable in China. Therefore, proposing an analysis of a 100% renewable energy system in China is not unreasonable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]