Relationship between Industrial Coupling Coordination and Carbon Intensity in the Bohai Rim Economic Circle

Abstract

Coordinated development of new high-tech industries and traditional industries is crucially important for economic growth and environmental sustainability, and it has become a focus of academic and governmental bodies. This study establishes the comprehensive evaluation index system of high-tech industries and traditional industries, and uses the method of principal component analysis, coupling and coupling coordination degree model to determine the level of industry coordinated development. Then, Pearson correlation test is used to further analyze the correlation between regional industrial coupling coordination and carbon intensity of the seven provinces in the Bohai Rim Economic Circle (BREC). The results are as follows. (1) There is a negative correlation between industrial coupling coordination and carbon intensity. (2) The degree of industrial coordination of Beijing, Tianjin, and Shandong is significantly higher than other provinces in the BREC, as both the high-tech industries and traditional industries of these three provinces have reached a high level of development and achieved high coupling. The high-tech industries of the three provinces show positive changes, whereas the traditional industries show negative changes, which indicates that the new high-tech industries are driving the upgrading of the traditional industries by the application of high technologies. (3) From 2011 to 2016, the number of provinces with a low degree of high-tech and traditional industrial coordination fell from three to one. The traditional industries in Hebei and Inner Mongolia have been upgraded by strengthening their technological innovation with the introduction of rapid high-tech industrial development. These findings are a useful reference for regional industrial coupling coordination and carbon emission reduction.