Forecasting the Path of China's CO2 Emissions Using Province Level Information

F Forecasting the path of China’s CO2 emissions using provincelevel information Maximilian Auffhammer , Richard T. Carson Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, 207 Giannini Hall, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-3310, USA University of California, San Diego, USA Received 31 December 2006 O CT ED P RO Abstract Our results suggest that the anticipated path of China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions has dramatically increased over the last five years. The magnitude of the projected increase in Chinese emissions out to 2010 is several times larger than reductions embodied in the Kyoto Protocol. Our estimates are based on a unique provincial-level panel data set from the Chinese Environmental Protection Agency. This data set contains considerably more information relevant to the path of likely Chinese greenhouse gas emissions than national level time series models currently in use. Model selection criteria clearly reject the popular static environmental Kuznets curve specification in favor of a class of dynamic models with spatial dependence. r 2008 Published by Elsevier Inc. JEL classification: Q43; C53