Abstract
Achieving the win-win goal of economic development and carbon intensity reduction, especially through industrial restructuring, is a challenge involving uncertainty and complexity. Determining which industry is green and whether it should be encouraged or limited at different stages of economic development are key issues. The relationship between industrial structure and carbon intensity was systematically analyzed in 21 industrial sectors from 1971 to 2014 in eight developed countries, with different levels of economic development, using an extended dynamic threshold model. The results indicated that there is a relationship between industrial composition and carbon intensity, and the impact trajectory of industrial structure on carbon intensity can be classified into four categories: contaminated, pollution-clean, cleaning hysteresis, and enhanced cleaning. Each type of sectoral relationship between GDP and carbon intensity would change at certain economic levels. The change points for most sectors were US$ 525 and US$ 3904 GDP per capita, which represent the points at which a country enters the mid-industrialization and high-tech industrialization stages, respectively. Therefore, the government and enterprises must upgrade their industrial structure as the national GDP increases, adjust the proportion of sectors operating according to the industrial characteristics, and improve production technology through environmental regulation.
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Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2016YFA0602803) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41371142) and the China Scholarship Council. Meanwhile, the authors would like to thank the editor of this journal and reviewers for their detailed and helpful comments.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Lin Zhang and Li Ma. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Lin Zhang, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Highlights
• The proportion change of the industrial structure mainly affects carbon intensity.
• Different sectors have different relationships with carbon intensity’s evolution.
• The improvement of economic development level can significantly promote the reduction of carbon intensity brought by industrial structure adjustment.
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Zhang, L., Ma, L. The relationship between industrial structure and carbon intensity at different stages of economic development: an analysis based on a dynamic threshold panel model. Environ Sci Pollut Res 27, 33321–33338 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-09485-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-09485-7