Convergence of Regional Economic Growth and Carbon Emission Intensity in China

Following rapid economic growth, the environmental pollution is getting worse in most regions in China. Meanwhile, the urbanization and industrialization of China has not completed yet, with energy consumption continuing to grow, environmental carrying capacity is becoming smaller and smaller, which leads to emission reduction cost continues to grow. This paper analysed convergence of economic growth and carbon emission intensity of the east, central and west regions in China by using panel date, and the results show that economic growth is β conditional convergence while carbon emissions intensity is β absolute convergence. By building relation model between carbon emission intensity gap and economic gap, introducing in elastic coefficient η, it was found that when the central and west regions narrow their economic gap with the east region by 1 percent, it leads to their carbon emission intensity gap with the east region narrow by 0.5712 and 0.5900 percent respectively, which shows that when the central and west regions are narrowing their economic gap with the east region, 'the narrowing' is based on energy-saving and emission-reduction. At the same time it can also be found that convergent rating of economy is quicker than that of carbon emission intensity, which suggests that energy-saving and emission-reduction is still what China need to follow when promoting balanced development of regional economy. Based on the above results, some useful suggestions to promote collaborative development of regional economy and synchronous collaborative development between regional carbon emission intensity and economic development were given.