Abstract：Under the circumstances of global climate change and energy shortage, promoting the coordinated development of economy, energy and environment, and transforming to low carbon economy is an inevitable choice for China. Based on the provincial panel data, this paper investigates the evolution track of the economic gravity center, CO2 emissions gravity center and carbon intensity gravity center, and reveals the driving factors. The results show that the gravity center of CO2 emissions is moving to the southwest region, but the gravity center of economy is shifting to southeast region. Economic growth is a main factor affecting the growth of CO2 emissions, while energy efficiency plays an important role in lowing CO2 emissions, which is also the main reason that the spatial moving direction between the economic gravity center and CO2 emissions gravity center. By influencing of carbon lock-in, the industrial structure adjustment has little effect on CO2 emissions in the short run. According to the results, this paper puts forward that in the future, the policy makers should focus on improving energy efficiency, especially for middle and western regions, and strengthening the supervision of energy efficiency in every region to ensure the effective implementation of energy saving and emissions reduction. In the long run, optimizing and upgrading the industrial structure are still the fundamental measures of reducing carbon emissions.
Keywords：CO2 Emissions, Gravity Center Deviate, Energy Efficiency, Industrial Structure
source:Finance & Trade Economics ,No12,2013