Beyond the Environmental Kuznets Curve: a comparative study of SO₂ and CO₂ emissions between Japan and China

Abstract

This study is the first systematic attempt to test statistically the contrasting hypotheses on the emission of SO2 and CO2, and energy consumption in Japan and China for the last few decades. We postulate the hypotheses that local governments have incentives to internalize the local external diseconomies caused by SO2 emissions, but not the global external diseconomies caused by CO2 emissions. To substantiate our hypotheses, we decompose emissions of SO2 and CO2 into two factors: the emission factor (i.e., emission per energy use) and the energy consumption. The results show that the prefectures where the past energy consumption was high tend to reduce the emission factor of SO2 significantly in Japan, while we do not find such a tendency in China.There is also evidence that neither per capita income nor the past energy consumption affects the CO2 emission factor and the energy consumption significantly in both Japan and China implying that an individual country has little incentives to reduce CO2 emissions.3

A projected turning point in China's CO<SUB align="right">2 emissions: an Environmental Kuznets Curve analysis

“…Comparing the results with other studies, most studies found that China's CO 2 emissions and GDP can be cointegrated, or in other words, there is a long-term relationship between CO 2 emissions and GDP (Yaguchi et al, 2007;Wang et al, 2011;Jalil and Mahmud, 2009;Han and Lu, 2009). However, whether the EKC hypothesis is true and especially when the turn point would appear, when the EKC hypothesis is verified, remain debateable and the answers highly depend on what impact factors and what data are used (Dinda, 2004;Stern, 2004).…”

“…In addition, different results can be produced if panel data were adopted, e.g. Yaguchi et al (2007) and Wang et al (2011).…”

Climate change mitigation in China

“…It should be noted that the turning point will be reached later than 2078 when the growth in GDP is slower than 10% per annum, since growth in GDP is a declining force for CO 2 emissions according to the EKC hypothesis. 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 Comparing the results with other studies, most studies found that China's CO 2 emissions and GDP can be cointegrated, in other words there is a long-term relationship between CO 2 emissions and GDP (Han and Lu, 2009;Jalil and Mahmud, 2009;Wang et al, 2011;Yaguchi et al, 2007). However, whether the EKC hypothesis is true, and especially when the turning point appears when the EKC hypothesis is verified, remain debatable and the answers highly dependent on the impact factors and/or data used (Dinda, 2004;Stern, 2004).…”

“…In addition, different results are produced when panel data are adopted, e.g. Yaguchi et al (2007) and Wang et al (2011).…”

L’impact de la taille des firmes industrielles sur la courbe de Kuznets environnementale : le cas des émissions de SO2 en Chine

“…L'effet anticipé d'une forte présence étatique sur les émissions semblerait donc indéterminé. Cependant, Yaguchi et al (2007) Le ratio capital-travail (K/L) est une autre variable fréquemment utilisée dans les modèles de CKE. Cependant, l'effet de cette variable sur la qualité environnementale demeure incertain puisque les secteurs plus intensifs en capital pourraient également être plus intensifs en pollution (Antweiler et al, 2001;Cole et al, 2005).…”