Interactions between China׳s economy, energy and the air emissions and their policy implications

Abstract

How to coordinate the relationships between economy, energy and environment is a complex issue for China. This paper presented an indicator system based on energy, emergy and monetary units to explore the interactions between China׳s economic growth, its energy production and consumption, and the related air emissions during 1995–2011. The results show that (1) China׳s energy utilization efficiency is continuously raised whilst the total production efficiency is just slightly improved; (2) petroleum import has surpassed international warning line (50%) since 2007, and it is further challenging China׳s energy security; (3) basic energy mix is still mainly composed of coal and petroleum; (4) air emissions׳ impact from energy production has climbed rapidly whilst that from energy consumption has declined slowly. Air emissions׳ impact from energy consumption still has main contribution to the total emissions׳ impact whilst that from energy production has an increasing share. Therein, air emissions׳ impact mainly comes from the impact on human health. While air emission intensity from energy consumption decreases obviously, that from energy production generally increases; (5) generally, the relationships between the structures of economy and energy and air emissions have become more coordinated. Compared with structure coordination degree, the improvement of scale harmony degree between the three aspects is much slower due to rebound effect, which will seriously challenge the presented targets in 12th Five-Year-Plan (FYP). Promoting the synergistic effect should become the underlying strategy for future economic sustainable development.

Introduction

China׳s economy has been growing by 11.25% of GDP or 10.11% of per capita GDP during 1978–2011 (Fig. 1). And even the world financial crisis began in 2008 has not stopped the pace of China׳s economic growth. The country׳s economic miracle has induced huge energy consumption and serious air environmental pollution. China is a dominant energy consumer in global context [1], and its primary energy consumption has exceeded domestic energy production since 1994, leading to a substantial expansion in energy imports, particularly of oil. China׳s energy demand has an increasingly significant impact on global energy markets [2]. At present, China has the greatest contribution to SO₂ and CO₂ emissions in the world [3]. With the continuing growth of economy in the next 10–15 years, China will face a more severe situation of energy consumption and the related increasing multiple pollutant emissions. Regional air pollution especially fine particles and ozone from fossil fuel consumption has not been well solved for the country [4], which contributes greatly to the burden of disease [5]. Meanwhile, the increasingly serious global climate change issue has and will become another challenge for China׳s future energy development [6], and emissions of greenhouse gases from energy use will inevitably intensify China׳s environmental health troubles. Therefore, the Chinese government has to take measures to improve the environmental efficiency and restructure the economic growth pattern [7].

China׳s economic growth needs lots of energy to support, but how to obtain a sufficient energy supply is now a problem. Meanwhile, environmental pollution caused by energy production and consumption is a problem that urgently needs to be solved [7] because ambient air pollution had diverse negative effects on human health [8]. And these issues have inspired many related researches, such as energy and environment [1], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], energy and economy [17], [18], [19], energy and exports [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25]. But those existing researches only focused on one or two aspects of China׳s economy–energy–environment related issues and could not give full perspectives to decision-makers. Recently, some researches also began to address economy and energy and environment related issues of China [26], [27], [28], [29], [30], [31], [32]; however, air emissions׳ impact from energy production and/or other air emissions besides CO₂ have not been fully considered in those researches. The relationships between economy, energy and environment are very complicated, and exploring these complex issues needs a systematic tool in order to consider the related issues from different angles as well as an integrated level. Maybe integration of different measurement tools is one of the solutions.

Therein, emergy can act as one of the measurement tools. Emergy is defined by Odum as the sum of the available energy (exergy) of one kind previously required directly and indirectly to make a product or service [33]. This method has been widely accepted as an effective ecological evaluation tool to assess comprehensive performances of all kinds of systems with different scales and functions [34], [35], [36], [37], [38], [39], [40], [41], [42], [43], [44], [45], [46], [47], [48], [49], [50], [51], [52], [53], [54], [55], [56], [57], [58], [59], [60], [61], [62], [63], [64], [65], [66], [67], [68], [69], [70], [71], [72], [73], [74], [75], [76], [77], [78]. Recently, emergy approach has been also improved by some scholars, including improving its accounting [79], [80], [81], [82], [83], [84], [85], quantifying impact of emissions in terms of emergy [86], [87], measuring environmental carrying capacity in terms of emergy [88], updating some of the unit emergy values [65], [89], [90], joint use of emergy approach and other methods [68], [82], [85], [91], [92], etc. However, it is still necessary to further extend the research fields of emergy approach in order to fully explore its potential, such as emergy analysis of the performance of national energy production and consumption, emergy evaluation of the relationships between one country׳s economy and energy and emissions, etc. Of course, more other measurement tools and methods, such as economic measurement, energy measurement, etc., could be combined with emergy to set up the corresponding indicator system so as to assess this complex system from different angles and holistic levels simultaneously.

China has attracted worldwide attention due to its global economic and environmental effects derived from its rapid economic growth over the last 30 years, with particularly concerning about its accelerating energy consumption and resulting air emissions. China is facing severe energy-related challenges that conflict resource shortages with the planned rapid economic growth, energy use with the related air pollution, and new technology with the old production/consumption patterns. It is recognized that energy development must follow a sustainable path to coordinate economy growth, social development, and environmental protection [93], such as a more comprehensive, supply chain perspective on energy–export linkages [20], a comprehensive sustainability policy for overcoming the problems associated with production and consumption patterns and their impact on the environment [94], etc. China aims at quadrupling per-capita GDP by 2020 compared to the year 2000. Without any energy and environmental policy measures, this tremendous economic growth would be accompanied with a quadrupling of primary energy consumption up to 6.3 billion ton of standard coal equivalents (sce) and energy-related CO₂-emissions of 13.9 billion ton against this background. Therefore, China needs to implement its sustainable development strategy into the quantitative context of the country׳s economic development and subsequent economic growth-related environmental problems. The country is urgently searching for a way to ease the negative implications of economic growth and has committed itself to achieve a level of 3.0 billion ton sce primary energy consumption in 2020 [95]. However, how about the contribution of China׳s energy production to the total air emissions׳ impact? How about the different kinds of air emissions׳ contributions to the total air emissions׳ impact in the country? How about the interactions between China׳s economy, energy production and consumption and the related air emissions? Which factors will affect the realization of binding targets for energy conservation and emission reduction in the 12th Five-Year Plans (FYP)? How to deal with these issues in the 12th FYP? Therefore, it still needs to further explore the following issues so as to provide policy-makers with more comprehensive perspectives, including efficiency of energy production and use, energy security, energy mix, air emissions׳ impact from energy production and consumption, and the relationships between structures and scales of economy and energy and environment. These issues should be investigated through a systematic method so as to reveal the potential conflicts during China׳s fast economic growth against historical background. This paper aims to applying the emergy analysis method and several proposed indicators to investigate the relationships between China׳s rapid economic growth, energy production and consumption and the related impact of air emissions from 1995 to 2011 so as to provide a new perspective and some beneficial suggestions for policy-makers. Emissions׳ impact is quantified in terms of emergy; the corresponding indicators based on emergy and energy and money units are adopted to depict the interrelationships between GDP growth, energy production and consumption, and air emissions׳ impact. Detailed systematic indicators are examined from time serials, and temporal variation of indicators is explored to illustrate some characteristics of the Chinese economy. Finally, this paper discusses the corresponding issues and puts some related suggestions.