Research on regional differences of carbon emission in China: Based on Theil index method

This paper measures China´s regional differences of carbon emissions based on Theil index methodology mainly, takes the contribution of inter-region and inner-region differences to total value into decomposition, compares the GDP-weighted Theil index and the one weighted on industrial added value, mainly focus on the impact of the level of economic development and industrialization on carbon emissions in different regions. The result shows that total difference mainly comes from inner-region differences, which is mainly caused by differences within eastern regions; the overall regional differences of carbon emissions in the eastern, central and western inner-region has taken on a shrinking trend since 1997, but the contribution of all three interregional differences become increasing year by year totally; for overwhelming majority of energy consumption is made by industrial sector, the paper found that Theil index weighted on the added value could better reveal the regional differences in carbon emissions compared to GDP-weighted index which is partly masked this differences.