China's Economic Growth and Energy Consumption

Abstract

Economic growth needs to consume large amounts of fossil energy, which will result in greenhouse gas emissions and global climate warming. Therefore, how to save energy and protect environment has become a worldwide problem. This paper establishes an econometric model including labor, fixed capital stock, energy inputs and other explanatory variables based on the Cobb-Douglas production function to empirically analyze the relation between China's economic growth and energy consumption. Meanwhile, this paper illustrates the relation of China's carbon dioxide emissions to export trade, too. The study results show that China still promotes economic growth at the costs of high energy consumption and heavily environment pollution. Therefore, how to achieve the transition of a high carbon economy to a low carbon economy will be a fundamental problem that has to solve in China's future development. To this end, China should participate in international environmental cooperation, promote energy saving and environment conservation.Keywords: Economic growth, Energy consumption, The Cobb-Douglas production functionJEL Classifications: C32; O13; O24