The influencing factors of industrial carbon emissions in the context of undertaking industrial transfer in Anhui Province, China

Abstract

Industrial development has led to the indisputable fact that high carbon emissions were brought into Anhui Province. This paper calculates the changes in Anhui’s carbon emissions from 2000 to 2015 and analyzes the influencing factors. The results prove that carbon emissions show a stable upward trend, but the growth rate has declined after 2005. Carbon emissions produced by three major industrial sectors: mining industry, EGW (electricity, water and gas) and manufacturing industry, show a growing trend, but growth rates decrease successively. According to the STIRPAT model, five factors, including out-of-province investment, energy consumption structure, per capita income, proportion of output value in the secondary industry to GDP and actual use of foreign capital, are positively correlated with Anhui’s carbon emissions, while there is a negative correlation between the proportions of the total volume of foreign trade and the industrial added value of enterprises above designated size (two factors) to total industrial output value. As the structure of energy consumption has long been fueled by coal, the transfer of external industry mainly focuses on projects concerning power plants, steel product processing and coal chemical industry, which are highly energy-consuming, which means these are the main factors driving the growth of carbon emissions.