Decoupling effects and driving factors between provincial economic growth and coal consumption in China

The Tapio decoupling model along with the provincial coal consumption and socio-economic development data from 2005 to 2019 was used to evaluate the decoupling effects between coal consumption and economic growth and their spatiotemporal evolution of each province (autonomous regions and municipalities) in China. The results show that the decoupling state of coal consumption in all provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) generally presents a good trend of transition from the negative growth decoupling and growth connection to the weak decoupling and strong decoupling, in which a state of weak decoupling presents in most regions. Spatially, the decoupling situation of coal consumption and economic growth in the eastern regions is significantly better than that in the central and western regions. The strong decoupling tends to expand outward from Beijing, Shanghai, and Sichuan except Ningxia and Xinjiang where the decoupling state is fluctuating between growth connection and negative growth decoupling. And the results from the extended STIRPAT model and spatial Durbin model indicate that the factors such as energy structure, energy intensity, R&D intensity, population density, level of openness, afforestation area, and industrial structure significantly impact the coal consumption decoupling index. Therefore, the top-level design of coal reduction, technology investment and R&D, and adjustment of energy structure should be enhanced to promote the decoupling of economic growth from coal consumption. © 2024 Chinese Society for Environmental Sciences. All rights reserved.