Analysis of the Driving Factors of Carbon Emissions and Countermeasures for Carbon Emission Reduction in Hebei Province

In this paper, the quadratic polynomial and cubic polynomial functions were applied to analyze the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) of carbon emissions in Hebei Province. The improved STIRPAT model was also applied to assess the driving factors and reduction paths for carbon emissions in Hebei Province. The results lead to three main conclusions. Firstly, carbon emissions and economic growth in Hebei Province are in a positive cor-relation stage which has not formed the EKC curve, and the “decoupling” stage between carbon emissions and economic growth has not arrived yet. Secondly, the industrial structure, per capita GDP, fixed assets investment, population size and urbanization rate account for the highest proportion of carbon emissions. Carbon emissions can be reduced greatly by changing the energy structure, in which the proportion of coal is decreased year by year. Environmental regulation also has an obvious effect on the reduction of carbon emissions. Thirdly, it is suggested that the reduction of carbon emissions in Hebei Province should focus on four tasks: controlling the development of heavy industry, avoiding overcapacity, optimizing the industrial structure and accelerating the development of clean energy.