Correlation Analysis of Carbon Emission Intensity and Industrial Structure in China

Industrial structure regulation and low-carbon economy development are inter-linked.The discussion on the carbon emissions intensity(CEI) from the perspective of industrial structure is helpful to determining the major industrial factors influencing the change of total carbon emissions and then formulating industrial policies effectively to reduce carbon emissions.Based on the analysis of total carbon emissions of the whole country,the relationship between CEI and primary industry,between CEI and secondary industry,and between CEI and tertiary industry is empirically studied in this paper using the method of gray correlation model and the data of total carbon emissions,industry output proportion in GDP and per GDP carbon emissions of the country and 28 major provinces from 2001 to 2008.There are three results as follows: secondary industry is the main factor causing the carbon emission because secondary industry in 16 regions have the highest correlation with CEI,but it is not the absolute factor increasing the regional carbon emission;tertiary industry's effect on reducing the carbon emissions is not obvious because the impact of tertiary industry in 11 regions on CEI exceeds the impact of secondary industry on CEI,this should be paid more attention in the future;primary industry has the smallest impact on CEI,except for four regions.On this basis,strategies of industrial structure regulation are proposed for carbon emissions reduction in the future in order to effectively control the industrial factors on the influence of carbon emissions in China.