The distribution dynamics of Carbon Dioxide Emission intensity across Chinese provinces: A weighted Approach

TL;DR

This study analyzes the distribution and convergence patterns of CO2 emission intensity across Chinese provinces from 1995 to 2014, revealing divergence, convergence clubs, and the influence of economic and capital factors on long-term dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces a weighted distribution dynamics approach to analyze CO2 emission intensity, highlighting the roles of economic size and capital intensity in convergence behavior.

Findings

CO2 emission intensity tends to diverge over time.

Convergence clubs are identified in the distribution.

Economic and capital factors significantly influence long-term distribution patterns.

Abstract

This paper examines the distribution dynamics of carbon dioxide (CO2) emission intensity across 30 Chinese provinces using a weighted distribution dynamics approach. The results show that CO2 emission intensity tends to diverge during the sample period of 1995-2014. However, convergence clubs are found in the ergodic distributions of the full sample and two sub-sample periods. Divergence, polarization and stratification are the dominant characteristics in the distribution dynamics. Weightings with economic and population sizes have important impacts on current distributions and hence long run steady distributions. Neglecting economic size may under-estimate the deterioration in the long run steady state. The result also shows that conditioning on space and income cannot eliminate the multimodality in the long run distribution. However, capital intensity has important impact on the formation of convergence clubs. Our findings have contributions in the understanding of the spatial dynamic behaviours of CO2 emissions across Chinese provinces, and have important policy implications for CO2 emissions reduction in China.