Economic and non-economic sector reforms in carbon mitigation: Empirical evidence from Chinese provinces

Abstract

The study examines the main contributors of carbon dioxide (CO2) emission in China and attempts to propose the economic and non-economic reforms to mitigate this emission. We use the panel data from 2004 to 2015 of 30 Chinese provinces to conduct the full sample, regional and policy-based analysis. Our findings have shown statistically significant and positive effects of coal consumption, oil consumption and industrialization on CO2 emission in China. In economic sector reforms, we find that increasing in investment for industrial treatment plans, such as carbon injection treatment, leads to a decrease in CO2 emission. For non-economic reforms, the empirical results have provided the evidence that higher CO2 emission is controlled by increasing forest land and forest investment. These findings have significant practical implications for policymakers to introduce economic and non-economic reforms simultaneously to overcome environmental degradation effectively.