Trends and Regional Variations in Carbon Productivity across China

PAN Jiahua1 and ZHANG Lifeng2

1Director of and scholar of the Institute for Urban and Environmental Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), Beijing 2Associate Professor at Northeastern University, Qinhuangdao and Post-doctorate scholar at the Institute of Urban Development and Environmental Studies, CASS, Beijing
Abstract: This paper utilizes the Theil and decoupling indices to analyze variation in carbon productivity as well as the factors that influence regional carbon productivity in
China and proposes carbon emission reduction countermeasures. The authors conclude that most provinces exhibit year-on-year rising carbon productivity, a trend which decreases moving from east to western China. When applied to carbon productivity, the Theil index presents distinct regional differences. Moreover, the regional variance in carbon productivity is consistently reduced in eastern China and becomes smaller in central China. The difference, however, grows in western China. Carbon productivity grows with the highest speed in central China and the lowest speed in western China. Overall variation in carbon productivity mainly arises from intra-regional difference, whereas inter-regional difference mainly contributed by eastern China. In recent years; both the decoupling index, a dynamic value equal to the rate of change rate in carbon emissions divided by the rate of change in GDP during a given period of time, and carbon productivity vary in different economic development stages. Even if under the same decoupling state, carbon productivity remains different in three regions, i.e., that of the eastern region is higher than the other two regions.

Key word: carbon productivity, regional variation, Theil index, decoupling index