Abstract
The impact of population structure on carbon emission has always been a key area of research in modern society. In this paper, we propose a new expanded STIRPAT model and panel co-integration method to analyze the relationship between population aging and carbon emission, based on the provincial panel data in China from 1999 to 2014. Empirical results show that there exists a significant inverted U-shaped curve between the population aging and carbon emission. There also exist regional discrepancies, where the impact of the population aging on carbon emission in the eastern region is significantly positive. By contrast, a negative relationship arises in the central and western regions. Finally, several suggestions for low carbon development are provided.
Highlights
With the worsening global environment, extreme climates, for instance the sea level rising, climate warming and drought, frequently occur
The coefficient of the population aging is positive in Model 4, indicating that aging can promote the increase of the carbon emission in China
The coefficients of other variables in Model 4 are all positive, which illustrates that the population size, urbanization rate, household consumption level, energy consumption intensity and the growing proportion of secondary industry value all have positive impacts on the carbon emission
Summary
With the worsening global environment, extreme climates, for instance the sea level rising, climate warming and drought, frequently occur. The global climate change caused by the greenhouse gas emission has attracted wide attention from all over the world. China’s economy develops rapidly in the past 30 years, making its GDP rank second, and carbon emission rank first in the world (accounting for 28% of global carbon emission in 2011) [2]. In the National Plan for Addressing Climate Change (2014–2020), a mandatory provision indicates that unit GDP carbon dioxide emission in China by 2020 must be reduced 40–45% compared tothat in 2005 [4]. “China report on the development on silver industry (2014)” predicts that the number of the elderly will exceed 400 million around 2033 and 500 million by 2050 [6]. The advent of the “silver tide”, with no doubt, will bring great impact on China’s economic, social, political and cultural development
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