Regional differences and influencing factors in the CO_2 emissions of China's power industry based on the panel data models considering power-consuming efficiency factor

摘要

With the economic development, China has become the largest CO2 emissions country. China's power industry CO2 emissions accounted for about 50% of total CO2 emissions. Therefore, exploring major drivers of CO2 emissions is critical to mitigating its CO2 emissions in power industry. Many studies considered the time series model to analyze the national influences factors of CO2 emissions. But this paper focuses on regional differences in CO2 emissions and adopts panel data models to explore the major impact factors of CO2 emissions in the power industry at the regional and provincial perspectives. The results indicate economic growth level plays a dominant role in reducing CO2 emissions. The power-consuming efficiency on the demand side has large potential to mitigate CO2 emissions, but its influences are different in three regions. The impacts of the electric power structure on CO2 emissions decline from the eastern region to the central and western regions. The influence of urbanization and industrialization also has significant regional differences. Therefore, the governments should consider the influencing factors and regional differences and formulate appropriate policies to decrease CO2 emissions in the power industry.