An Empirical Research on the Regional Difference in China's Coal Consumption and Polluting Emission

Against the great background in which the economic development gets into a pattern of transformation and resources saving and a proenvironmental and harmonious socialist society is building up in China,this paper analyzed the influence of China's coal consumption on polluting emissions from 1978 to 2008 by adopting the panel data analysis method.The studies show that although coal consumption has different characteristic effects in regions on the emissions of different pollutants,the influence of coal consumption on polluting emissions in East,North and South China are higher than that in Central,Northwest and Southwest China.On the whole,coal consumption is most remarkable to the exhaust emission.Consequently,the paper also discussed the factors that result in the changes of coal consumption from the angle of the development of China's regional economy,and discovered that the prominent function of industrial structure and local authority intervention in the economy play a notable role in the grouth of coal consumption.Therefore,in order to further realize energy-saving and emission reduction,China needs to define and decompose the controlling targets of different pollutions in different regions,optimize the regional industrial structure and energy structure,give full play to the positive role of government intervention in energy consumption,construct systems and mechanisms for regional energy cooperation,and promote the clean use of coal resources tbrougb policy stimulation,on the basis of coal consumption.All these will provide positive influence on the economic and social sustainable development of China.