The Choice of Leading Industries under Low-Carbon Constraint in Hunan Province

Abstract

In the background of industrial energy conservation in Hunan "Twelfth Five-Year Plan", how to select leading industries on the basis of carbon reduction becomes a major challenge in Hunan Province. We develop a leading industries selection index system under low-carbon constraint. Then, we make use of Weaver-Thomas model to select leading industries without low-carbon constraint or under low-carbon constraint in 2003, 2007 and 2011. This paper also design three scenario simulations to analyze how different carbon constraints influence the choice of leading industries in Hunan Province. The conclusions are as follows: (1) Without low-carbon constraint, leading industries in Hunan tend to be those with lower carbon productivity. Under low-carbon constraint, leading industries in Hunan include those with high carbon productivity. It suggests that Low-carbon constraint affects the choice of leading industries in Hunan Province, the leading industries have lower carbon productivity without low-carbon constraint, while they are changing to industries with higher carbon productivity under low-carbon constraint.(2) The result of three scenarios simulation shows that leading industries in the Strong low-carbon constraint scenario closest to the " Twelfth Five-Year Plan ", then Weak low-carbon constraint scenario and no low-carbon constraint scenario.