THE SIMULTANEOUS IMPACT OF URBANIZATION AND EDUCATION ON RENEWABLE ENERGY CONSUMPTION: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM CHINA

Based on the provincial data of China in 21 years and adopting FGLS estimation, this study analyzed the simultaneous impact of urbanization and education on energy consuming. The paper find that urbanization may greatly increase energy consumption while the improvement of education can be conducive to energy conservation and emission reduction. In further research, there are simultaneous promotional impact of urbanization and education on renewable-energy consumption (REC), while energy structure can be optimized. It was also found that the synergy of urbanization and education in China's western region may reduce the REC while in the eastern region may increase total energy consumption. This indicates that the uncoordinated development leads to a failure of an optimal energy consumption structure being realized. Therefore, governments should balance urbanization and education development, formulate targeted policies to improve the energy efficiency and encourage renewable-energy consumption to achieve the strategic objectives of low-carbon transformation.