Energy use and urbanization as determinants of China’s environmental quality: prospects of the Paris climate agreement

Abstract

Climate change is an environmental problem that humanity will face over the next several decades. Environmental quality has always been an important component of the quality of life. The rapid rise in urbanization and energy use in China has profound environmental consequences. This study investigates the impact of energy use and urbanization on China’s ecological footprint and CO₂ emissions from 1971 to 2016. The results reveal the positive relationship between China’s energy use and urbanization, while international trade and capital formation are adversely associated with its CO₂ emissions and ecological footprint. Overall, energy use and urbanization deteriorate China’s environmental quality, while international trade and capital formation improve it. The results of Granger causality show bidirectional causality between urbanization and ecological footprint and between ecological footprint and CO₂ emissions, while unidirectional causality runs from the ecological footprint to energy use and from international trade to the ecological footprint.

Keywords:

• environmental quality
• energy use
• urbanization
• Paris Climate Agreement
• China

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is a multilateral environmental agreement, drafted on May 9, 1992. It has 165 signatories and presently 197 parties with the depository secretary general of the United Nations. https://unfccc.int/

2 China is the world’s leader in the production of electricity from renewable energy sources, with more than twice that of the world’s second-ranked country, the US. At the end of 2018, China had a total renewable energy capacity of 728 WD, mostly from wind power and hydroelectric. The renewable energy sector’s growth in China is faster than that of its non-renewable sources, such as fossil fuels and nuclear power (IEA 2017).