Abstract
As the largest energy consumer and carbon emitter, China has made substantial efforts to improve energy efficiency to save energy, while the energy rebound effect mitigates its effectiveness. This paper is based on the logical relationship among capital input, technical change, economic growth, and energy consumption, adapting an alternative estimation model to estimate the energy rebound effect for the construction industry in China. Empirical results reveal that the average energy rebound effect for the construction industry in China was about 59.5% during the period of 1990–2014. It is indicated that the energy rebound effect does exist in China’s construction industry and it presents a fluctuating declining trend. This indicates that approximately half of the potential energy saving by technical change is achieved. It could be concluded that proper energy pricing reforms and energy taxes should be implemented to promote sustainable development in the construction industry for China’s government.
Highlights
As the world’s largest developing country, China has increased its GDP by more than 80 times since its reform and opening-up of its economy in 1978
The key to energy rebound effect estimation is to evaluate the potential energy savings (SE) caused by technical change and the additional energy consumption (AE) due to output growth caused by technical change
The results verified that the energy rebound effect exists in China’s construction industry
Summary
As the world’s largest developing country, China has increased its GDP by more than 80 times since its reform and opening-up of its economy in 1978. China has faced more and more emerging conflicts in terms of energy supply and demand. In 2007, China became the largest carbon emitter [1], with a GDP of $5.8786 trillion USD in 2010, becoming the world’s largest energy consumer [2]. There is no doubt that the energy demand will soar in the future as China is on a path to rapid urbanization and industrialization. Improving energy efficiency is vitally important for energy savings and CO2 emission reduction. This problem has attracted much interest from both academia and the government. China has made substantial efforts to improve energy efficiency in the past decades
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