International Trade, Economic Growth and CO2 Emissions——An Empirical Research Based on Panel Data of Chinese Province-level

Relations between trade and environment have become an important topic in the academic domain. Formally, the research mainly focused on discussing the relationship between economic growth and CO2 emissions. With the development of international trade, the issue that whether international trade has brought more CO2 emissions as well as economic growth has aroused more and more attention. However, no consensual conclusion has been drawn on this issue. This paper discussed the questions from regional level. Firstly, we discerned three regional of China, that is, the east, middle and west. And then, by using panel data of 29 provinces of China during the period of 1995—2010, we examined the relations among international trade, economic growth and CO2 emissions based on Environmental Kuznets Curve Theory. The research results show that, international trade has significant positive effect on CO2 emissions in the East and in overall China while the effect is not significant in the Middle and in the West. Inverted “U” shape curve of CO2 emissions and economic growth occurs in the east, the middle and overall China significantly, while it does not occur in the west.