College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China; Institute for Circular Economy in Western China, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China.
College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China.
Sci Total Environ. 2019 May 15;665:1017-1025. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.02.162. Epub 2019 Feb 12.
China is currently the world's largest carbon emitter. As a large agricultural country, understanding the relationship between carbon emissions, economic growth and energy consumption in the agricultural sector can contribute to achieving the sustainable development of agriculture. Hence, this paper aims to investigate the relationship between carbon emissions, energy consumption and economic growth in the agricultural sector using a time series of data from China's main grain-producing areas during the period between 1996 and 2015. We first estimate the agricultural carbon emissions. And then based on the estimated results, we employ the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model, the Granger causality test based on the vector error correction model (VECM), and impulse response and variance decomposition to test the relationship between carbon emissions, energy consumption and economic growth in the agricultural sector. The estimated results support the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis for agricultural carbon emissions in China's main grain-producing areas. Furthermore, agricultural energy consumption has both the short-run and the long-run negative impacts on agricultural carbon emissions. In addition, we find that there is a bidirectional causality between agricultural carbon emissions and agricultural economic growth in both the short-run and the long-run, and the unidirectional causalities are found to exist from agricultural energy consumption to agricultural carbon emissions and agricultural economic growth. Finally, several policy recommendations are offered to promote the sustainable development of agriculture in China's main grain-producing areas.
中国目前是世界上最大的碳排放国。作为一个农业大国，了解农业部门的碳排放、经济增长和能源消耗之间的关系，有助于实现农业的可持续发展。因此，本文旨在利用中国主要粮食产区 1996 年至 2015 年期间的时间序列数据，研究农业部门的碳排放、能源消耗与经济增长之间的关系。我们首先估算了农业碳排放。然后，基于估算结果，采用自回归分布滞后（ARDL）模型、基于向量误差修正模型（VECM）的格兰杰因果检验以及脉冲响应和方差分解，检验了中国主要粮食产区农业部门的碳排放、能源消耗与经济增长之间的关系。估计结果支持了中国主要粮食产区农业碳排放的环境库兹涅茨曲线（EKC）假说。此外，农业能源消耗对农业碳排放具有短期和长期的负向影响。此外，我们发现农业碳排放与农业经济增长之间存在短期和长期的双向因果关系，并且从农业能源消耗到农业碳排放和农业经济增长存在单向因果关系。最后，提出了若干政策建议，以促进中国主要粮食产区农业的可持续发展。
