The impact of economic growth, industrial structure and urbanization on carbon emission intensity in China

China’s macroeconomic policy framework has been determined to ensure steady growth, adjust the industrial structure and advance the socioeconomic reforms in recent years. And urbanization is supposed to be one of the most important socioeconomic reform directions. Meanwhile, China also committed to reduce carbon emissions intensity by 2020, then it should be noted that what kind of impact of these policy orientations on carbon emission intensity. Therefore, based on the historical data from 1978 to 2011, this paper quantitatively studies the impact of China’s economic growth, industrial structure and urbanization on carbon emission intensity. The results indicate that, first, there is long-term cointegrating relationship between carbon emission intensity and other factors. And the increase in the share of tertiary industry [i.e., the ratio of tertiary industry value added to gross domestic product (GDP)] and economic growth (here we use the real GDP per capita) play significant roles in curbing carbon emission intensity, while the promotion of population urbanization (i.e., the share of population living in the urban regions of total population) may lead to carbon emission intensity growth. Second, there exists significant one-way causality running from the urbanization rate and economic growth to carbon emission intensity, respectively. Third, among the three drivers, economic growth proves the main influencing factor of carbon emission intensity changes during the sample period.