Implications of ageing and urbanization in China for economic growth and climate

In the past three decades, most carbon emissions in China are from industrial production due to high investments and strong demand from the rest of the world. However, in recent years, the strong demand from the rest of the world slows down due to the rec ession of the world economy. At the same time, investments has accounted for a high share of GDP. Hence, in order to keep the economy growing, the only way is to increase domestic consumption, particularly private consumption. This structural change may have dramatic impacts on GHG emissions and socio-economic characteristics. To boost domestic consumption, China has to consider two issues: ageing and urbanization. In the near future, China will become an ageing society with much less working-age labor than the past three decades. Pension reforms and consumption pattern of the elderly may have considerable impacts on emissions in the near future. At the same time, Chinese government plans to keep economic growth by speeding up the urbanization, inducing huge investments in urban infrastructure. In this project, we will adopt an integrated modeling approach to analysing the implications of ageing and urbanization in China for emissions, climate and energy policies. The new integrated model will be used to study implications of ageing and urbanization in China for emissions, climate and for the effect of climate policies by designing feasible emission scenarios and socio-economic scenarios.