The influence of climate change on CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions: an empirical estimation based on Chinese provincial panel data

Abstract

The issue of climate change has become an increasing concern for the international community. At the same time, climate change and, particularly, global warming affects the amount of energy required in China and the structure of this demand, thereby influencing the amount of CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions produced. To investigate the possible influence of climate change on China's CO2 emissions, this paper utilizes the degree-day method to calculate the heating degree days (HDD) and cooling degree days (CDD) in 29 provinces in China from 1995 to 2011. A series of appropriate econometric models are subsequently estimated to measure the impact of climate change on CO2 emissions per capita. To enhance the explanatory power of the estimation results, several indicators, such as income per capita, industry structure, urbanization rate and population density, are incorporated in the estimation equations as control variables. The estimation results indicate that the feedback effect of climate change on China's carbon emissions is statistically significant but not large in magnitude. During the sample period between 1995 and 2011, approximately 1.687% of China's increased total CO2 emissions could be attributed to climate change. Moreover, the impacts of climate change on different regions of China are notably different. For example, the influence of HDD on CO2 emissions per capita are most significant in the middle and southern regions, while the impacts of CDD are most significant in the eastern and northern regions. However, there is no obvious evidence that climate change has affected CO2 emissions in the western region.