Assessing energy poverty and its effect on CO2 emissions: The case of China

By Jun Zhao, Qingzhe Jiang, Xiucheng Dong, Kangyin Dong. 2021

347 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract With scholars paying increasing attention to the environmental effects of energy poverty, further discussion on the energy poverty-CO2 nexus is particularly useful for achieving carbon reduction targets from the perspective of energy poverty. Accordingly, this paper investigates the dynamic impact of energy poverty on CO2 emissions in China. By proposing a new and comprehensive evaluation index, we assess the energy poverty levels in 30 Chinese provinces for the period 2002–2017. Then, we re-estimate the impact of energy poverty on CO2 emissions using the system-generalized method of moments (SYS-GMM) method. We find that although significant differences exist in energy poverty across various regions in China, the country's total level of energy poverty displays a downward trend over the period 2002–2017. Furthermore, energy poverty can accelerate the growth of CO2 emissions in China. In regions with high-level energy poverty, a bidirectional causal link exists between energy poverty and CO2 emissions, while a unidirectional causality runs from energy poverty to CO2 emissions in regions with low-level energy poverty. The findings of this paper, therefore, add to the existing literature and provide important policy implications for curbing CO2 emissions.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Pollution, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/dce4f3432d2ff76af8a4c77715c584ad3eb8620d

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Economics and Econometrics

1. Muntasir Murshed
2. Zeeshan Khan
3. Kangyin Dong
4. Siqun Yang
5. M. H. Chadni
6. Jannatul Ferdaus

In Pollution

1. Zeeshan Khan
2. Kangyin Dong
3. Muntasir Murshed
4. M. H. Chadni
5. Jannatul Ferdaus

In Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

1. Zeeshan Khan
2. Muntasir Murshed
3. Siqun Yang
4. Kangyin Dong
5. M. H. Chadni
6. Jannatul Ferdaus

Citations in the corpus

• The roles of export diversification and composite country risks in carbon emissions abatement: evidence from the signatories of the regional comprehensive economic partnership agreement (2021, background): “In particular, many scholars believe economic development is the main driver affecting environmental quality and, thus, have explored the impact of gross domestic product (GDP) on CO2 emissions (Alvarez, McGee, and York 2019; Bekhet and Othman 2018; Dogan and Aslan 2017; Dong et al. 2018; Greiner an”