Abstract:

Global economic growth in the last few decades has caused various negative effects，such as environmental degradation，global warming，water deterioration，etc Greenhouse gas emissions and mitigation have attracted more and more attentions from the domestic and international China has been one of the largest CO2 emitters in the world，and is considered responsible for twothird global increase in anthropogenic CO2 emissions of 31% in 2007 Chinese government has committed to cut CO2 emissions per unit of gross domestic product （GDP） by 40%-45% by 2020 against the 2005 level，while total amount of CO2 emissions in China is expected to increase，due to the projected lasting economic growth and increase in energy demand Thus，urban area has been a critical part for reducing greenhouse gas emissions，due to its large amounts of population and productive enterprise Wuxi is a wellknown industrial city in China and has experienced rapid economic growth over the last few decades However，its economic growth deeply depends on resources consumption，and the reduction of carbon emissions will have an important impact on its economic growth  Carbon emissions from energy consumption was estimated at the countylevel in Wuxi based on the IPCC guidelines for national greenhouse gas inventories，and one “decoupling” model was established to investigate the relationship between energy consumption，carbon emissions and economic growth The results showed as follows. （1） Carbon emissions in Wuxi increased from 8，433，500 tons in 2000 to 25，280，400 tons in 2010 Total amount was at the increasing trend，whilst the increasing rate was generally decreasing，and the characteristic of carbon emissions at the countylevel presented obvious spatial heterogeneity Urban district had the smallest contribution for carbon emissions reduction，Jiangyin had become the main area with the increasing growth of carbon emissions，and Yixing was expected to continue at the lower level of carbon emissions growth （2） The relationship between carbon emissions and economic growth in Wuxi was generally at the weak decoupling state，and the decoupling state was expected at the increasing trend However，the relationships in different district/counties presented regional heterogeneity The economic development model in urban district was at the environmentfriendly direction; while the decoupling index in Jiangyin and Yixing was lower than the average of Wuxi，and energy saving and emissions reduction were challenged with great pressure （3） The coaldominated energy consumption structure would have no great change in the short term，due to resource constraints Optimizing industrial structure，adjusting internal structure of industry and improving the efficiency of energy use could  be one important practical countermeasure to improve the relationship between energy consumption，carbon emissions and economic growth in Wuxi Carbon emissions from the energy consumption of industrial enterprises above designated size was only included in this paper，resulting in certain underestimation of total carbon emissions Carbon emissions from mobile combustion，industrial processes，production use and waste disposal should be further included to improve the accuracy of the estimation in the future