Impact of carbon emissions on economic factors and economic growth in China's underdeveloped regions: Evidence from Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region

Global warming and carbon emissions are highly concerned by countries all over the world.Since 2005,China has surpassed the United States as the world’s first carbon emission country,but in recent years,China has made remarkable achievements in carbon emission regulation.In 2018,China’s carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP dropped by 4.0 %,a cumulative decline of 45.8 % over 2005 and equivalent to a reduction of 5.26 billion tons of CO2.But in underdeveloped areas of the western China,economic growth and energy conservation and emission reduction are still facing a severe contradiction.This paper mainly explores the impact of carbon emissions on economic factors and economic growth in China’s underdeveloped regions (Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region) over the period from 1998 to 2017.The Tapio decoupling elasticity index was used to measure the degree of dependence of Guangxi’s economic growth on carbon emissions,and the influence of economic development factors (the GDP,population,technology level and urbanization level) on CO2emissions was analyzed with the STIRPAT model.The main findings are presented as follows:(1) The relationship between carbon emissions and economic growth in China’s underdeveloped regions over the period from 1998 to 2017 is mainly characterized by weak decoupling;(2) According to OLS(Ordinary Least Square)modeling results,for every 1% increase in carbon dioxide emissions,economy grows by 0.947%,population size decreases 0.621%,urbanization level increases 0.120%,and technical level declines 0.830%.In view of the research conclusions,some suggestions are put forward to promote the economic transformation and upgrading,improve the environmental protection awareness of the population and actively promote the new urbanization.