Material consumption was decoupled from economic growth but is trending up

Over the past three decades, China has experienced rapid economic growth along with a rapid increase in urbanization and living standards, leading to a boom in infrastructure demand. A large part of China’s newly constructed infrastructure is through urban construction; thus, cities have become a major source of material consumption and carbon emissions. Understanding the relationship between material consumption, carbon emissions, and the economic growth of cities is key to ensuring that the construction of infrastructure satisfies the needs for both economic development and dematerialization. In this study, we first accounted for material consumption and the carbon emissions of infrastructure construction of 34 cities in Northeast China and characterized spatial and temporal changes from 2010–2017. The material use and carbon emissions of infrastructure construction declined by 34.6% and 30.2% during this period. Specifically, material consumption decreased from 305.2 million tonnes to 199.6 million tonnes, and carbon emissions decreased from 77.7 million tonnes to 54.3 million tonnes. Furthermore, we used a decoupling indicator to evaluate the decoupling of material consumption or carbon emissions from GDP in these cities. We found that most cities have achieved the absolute decoupling of material consumption and carbon emissions from GDP over the study period. Finally, we proposed several policy recommendations for promoting the sustainable development of the infrastructure of cities. To ensure that cities realize low-carbon urbanization, policymakers need to promote modular buildings and low-emission construction materials. This paper also serves as a practical reference for the improvement of relevant materials and carbon emissions management strategies for other developing regions.

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Theoretical Understanding of and Practice Path for Building an Ecological Economic System

Chinese Journal of Urban and Environmental Studies ◽

10.1142/s2345748119750101 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 07 (04) ◽

pp. 1975010

Author(s):

Hongbo CHEN

Keyword(s):

Economic Growth ◽

Economic System ◽

Evaluation System ◽

High Speed ◽

Economic Benefits ◽

Material Consumption ◽

Ecological Civilization ◽

Theoretical Understanding ◽

Ecological Economic ◽

Ecological Innovation

The economic system aimed at integrating industries and ecosystems is one of the five major systems for building an ecological civilization. What is an ecological economic system? It is an economic system that can keep economic growth ecologically neutral, i.e. an economic system that can maintain high-speed economic growth by following ecological and economic rules and without destabilizing ecosystems, so as to meet people’s ever-growing needs for a better life. Its features include minimum impacts on ecosystems and maximal eco-economic benefits, zero-carbon renewable energy as drivers, efficient connection between clean production and ecological industrial chains, equal stress on economical, non-waste material consumption and diversified non-material consumption. In practice, building an ecological economic system requires the establishment of a market system based on reflecting the scarcity of ecological elements, a technology support system relying on ecological innovation, a modern ecological industry system oriented to high-quality development, an investment system targeted at ecological capital gain and value realization, and a performance evaluation system guided by eco-efficiency and benefits. Besides, it is also required to establish and improve the property right system for ecological assets, study and formulates guiding policies for industries, speed up the eco-friendly reform of tax system, strengthen the innovation of green financial system and strictly observe the ecological red line.

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Decoupling Economic Growth from Fossil Fuel Use—Evidence from 141 Countries in the 25-Year Perspective

Energies ◽

10.3390/en13246671 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 13 (24) ◽

pp. 6671

Author(s):

Katarzyna Frodyma ◽

Monika Papież ◽

Sławomir Śmiech

Keyword(s):

Economic Growth ◽

Fossil Fuel ◽

Developed Countries ◽

Material Consumption ◽

Fuel Use ◽

Decoupling Approach ◽

Depth Analysis ◽

The Relationship

This study offers an in-depth analysis of the decoupling of economic growth from fossil fuel use in 141 countries over the last 25 years. The study is based on the Tapio decoupling approach, and two methods of measuring fossil fuel use, i.e., domestic material consumption (DMC) and material footprint (MF), are applied. Groups of countries with similar decoupling patterns are identified through the k-medoids method. Next, the relationship between these patterns and the level of countries’ development is examined. The results reveal that using different measures of fossil fuel use yields different processes of decoupling economic growth from fossil fuel use. In particular, when the DMC indicator is considered, relative decoupling is observed in most analysed cases. When the MF indicator is applied, the decoupling states of individual countries change more frequently. Finally, in highly developed countries, absolute decoupling is frequently observed, although only when the DMC indicator is used.

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