Interactions between China׳s economy, energy and the air emissions and their policy implications

How to coordinate the relationships between economy, energy and environment is a complex issue for China. This paper presented an indicator system based on energy, emergy and monetary units to explore the interactions between China׳s economic growth, its energy production and consumption, and the related air emissions during 1995-2011. The results show that (1) China׳s energy utilization efficiency is continuously raised whilst the total production efficiency is just slightly improved; (2) petroleum import has surpassed international warning line (50%) since 2007, and it is further challenging China׳s energy security; (3) basic energy mix is still mainly composed of coal and petroleum; (4) air emissions׳ impact from energy production has climbed rapidly whilst that from energy consumption has declined slowly. Air emissions׳ impact from energy consumption still has main contribution to the total emissions׳ impact whilst that from energy production has an increasing share. Therein, air emissions׳ impact mainly comes from the impact on human health. While air emission intensity from energy consumption decreases obviously, that from energy production generally increases; (5) generally, the relationships between the structures of economy and energy and air emissions have become more coordinated. Compared with structure coordination degree, the improvement of scale harmony degree between the three aspects is much slower due to rebound effect, which will seriously challenge the presented targets in 12th Five-Year-Plan (FYP). Promoting the synergistic effect should become the underlying strategy for future economic sustainable development.