Abstract
China’s rapid economic development is unavoidably characterized by environmental pitfalls, especially the carbon dioxide emissions of greenhouse gases from the use of energy. Since there is a relationship between economic growth, energy consumption, and carbon emission, it is important to note that the continuous improvement and application of solar energy technology will play an active role in carbon emission reduction. Therefore, this paper uses the Kuznets curve to probe the relationship between economic growth, solar energy technology, and carbon emissions. The results show that solar energy technology, economic development level, and carbon emissions are all integrated at the second order with a long-run cointegration relationship. In the long-run, the relationship between economic growth and carbon emissions is inverted “U,” which suggest that there is a turning point of carbon emissions, where the carbon emissions first increase with economic growth and then gradually decrease, which is reflected in the image as an inverted “U” curve. Also, the impact of economic factors on carbon emissions and the innovation of solar technology can negatively influence carbon emissions, and enhancing the innovation of solar technology has a positive effect on reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
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Funding
This study was supported by Social Science Funding Project of Jiangsu Province (no. 18GLB024), National Natural Science Foundation of China grant number (no. 7167031130), Social Science Funding Project of Jilin Province (no. 2017B141), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (no. 2016M590251), China Postdoctoral Science Special Fund (no. 2018T110242), and Jiangsu Postgraduate Scientific Research Innovation Project (B1810012).
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation was performed by Yu Sun, Mingxing Li, Mengjuan Zhang, and Hira Salah Ud Din Khan; data collection was performed by Jiaqiu Li, Zeyu Li, Hongzheng Sun, and Yue Zhu; and analysis was performed by Yu Sun, Mingxing Li, and Oswin Aganda Anaba. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Oswin Aganda and Yu Sun, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Sun, Y., Li, M., Zhang, M. et al. A study on China’s economic growth, green energy technology, and carbon emissions based on the Kuznets curve (EKC). Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 7200–7211 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-11019-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-11019-0