Can Clean Energy Consumption Promote the Decoupling Between Economic Growth and Environmental Pollution? - Spatial Empirical Analysis Based on China

High hopes are placed on the production and use of clean energy during the decoupling between economic growth and environmental pollution. This article uses the decoupling model to study the temporal and spatial coupling characteristics of economic growth and environmental pollution in different regions of China. On this basis, a spatial measurement model is used to quantitatively evaluate the effects of clean energy consumption on the decoupling of economic growth and environmental pollution. The results show that during the study period, the areas where economic growth and environmental pollution generally showed strong decoupling gradually increased, and the areas showing coupling gradually decreased. Moreover, the decoupling state has obvious spatial heterogeneity and spatial aggregation characteristics. Clean energy consumption can significantly promote the decoupling of economic growth and environmental pollution. In addition, the analysis of direct effects shows that clean energy consumption has a significant negative effect on the decoupling of regional economic growth from SO2 emissions and DS (dust and smoke) emissions. But the indirect effect and total effect are not obvious. It further proves that clean energy consumption has no significant effect on promoting the decoupling of surrounding areas and all areas except the local area.