Extrapolation or saturation - Revisiting growth patterns, development stages and decoupling
Extrapolation or saturation - Revisiting growth patterns, development stages and decoupling
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DOI：
10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2017.11.008
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发表时间：
2018-01-01
影响因子：
8.9
通讯作者：
Geng, Yong
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Bleischwitz, Raimund;Nechifor, Victor;Geng, Yong
当代关于在经济增长中使用自然资源的辩论围绕着通过提高资源效率推动的“脱钩”概念。许多研究从前几年的短时间序列推断未来的需求。然而，我们认为应更加关注基本需求假设和长期变化的可能性。因此，本文关注的是，由于各国在几十年的发展阶段中从早期工业化、大规模生产到成熟阶段，材料使用可能饱和。对这种饱和的观察与全球环境变化有关，因为未来对资源的需求可能低于目前的预期，从而减少相关的环境压力。特别是新兴经济体的增长模式正在发生变化，未来的资源使用量可能会比目前的分析结果低得多。本文结合了资源经济学和物质流分析的分析思路。它调查了世纪延长时间范围内的特定材料需求和库存积累趋势。我们使用“表观国内消费量”（ADC）指标和四个工业化国家（德国、日本、英国、美国）的国际贸易数据以及中国（最突出的新兴经济体）的国际贸易数据，对四种材料（钢、水泥、铝和铜）进行了分析。虽然四个工业化国家钢铁、铜和水泥的人均表观消费量证据确凿，但铝的人均表观消费量则稍弱。此外，材料使用的这种饱和可能始于不同的收入水平，钢铁和水泥的饱和开始较早（人均国内生产总值12 000美元），铜的饱和较晚（人均国内生产总值20 000美元）。结果表明，从大规模采用一种材料到出现任何饱和，大约有三十多年的时间差距。我们还揭示了经济中的库存积累，我们的研究结果表明，与取决于资本货物寿命的表观消费相比，至少延迟了20年才达到饱和。关于中国，钢铁和铜的需求饱和已经开始出现，我们的分析表明水泥的需求饱和也将很快出现。与对近期动态的推断相比，这些发现对中国未来的材料需求提供了更为温和的展望。我们对经济增长、发展阶段和自然资源利用之间关系的新见解，对脱钩论的辩论和大宗商品投资具有启示意义。从更广泛的环境政策角度来看，人们可以预期中国和其他新兴经济体很快就会达到饱和效应，因此也会达到工业温室气体排放的峰值，支持巴黎气候变化协定的国家自主贡献（NDC）。
The contemporary debate considering the use of natural resources in economic growth centres around the concept of 'decoupling' driven through improvements in resource efficiency. Many studies extrapolate future demand from a short time series of previous years. However, we believe there should be greater attention on the underlying demand assumptions and the possibility of long-term changes. Accordingly, this paper is concerned with a potential saturation in material use as a result of countries moving through stages of development over decades from early industrialisation, over mass production and into a mature stage. An observation of such saturation is relevant for global environmental change as future demand for resources could be lower than currently expected, leading to less associated environmental pressures. In particular, emerging economies are undergoing changing growth patterns, and their future resource use may be significantly lower than contemporary analysis suggests.This paper combines the analytical strands of resource economics and material flow analysis. It investigates both material-specific demand and stock build-up trends over an extended time horizon of a century. Four materials (steel, cement, aluminium and copper) are analysed applying an indicator called 'Apparent Domestic Consumption' (ADC) and using international trade data for four industrialised countries (Germany, Japan, UK, USA) together with China as the most preeminent emerging economy.Our results confirm the occurrence of a saturation effect for most materials considered. While the evidence is strong for the per capita apparent consumption of steel, copper and cement in the four industrialised countries, it is somewhat weaker for aluminium. Also, such saturation in material use can start at different income levels, with the saturation beginning to occur relatively early for steel and cement ($12,000 GDP/capita) and later for copper ($20,000 GDP/capita). The results suggest a time gap of around thirty + years from the take-off of large-scale adoption of one type of material and any saturation occurring. We also shed light on the build-up of stocks in the economy, where our findings suggest there is a delayed saturation of at least twenty years compared to apparent consumption depending on the lifetimes of capital goods.With regard to China, a demand saturation for steel and copper has already started to occur, and our analysis suggests such saturation will soon take place for cement. These findings provide a more moderate outlook on China's future material demand compared to an extrapolation of recent dynamics.Our new insights on the nexus between economic growth, development stages and the use of natural resources have implications for the decoupling debate and for investments into commodities. From a wider environmental policy perspective, one may expect China and other emerging economies to achieve a saturation effect soon and therefore also peak their industrial emissions of greenhouse gases, supporting the nationally determined contribution (NDC) to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.