A Comprehensive Model Assessment of China’s Forestry and Climate Change

Abstract

The relationship between maximizing forest revenue and reducing environmental pollution has been a challenging one. It is every country’s responsibility to protect its forest reserves and mitigate climate change. Studies on the relationship between forest economic models and climate change are limited, and most of them focus on maximizing forestry products. This study aims at filling the gaps and makes scientific contributions by providing a detailed account of various economic models and their correlations with climate change, as well as identifying the ecological footprint of forest products, fossil fuel consumption, forest cover, foreign direct investment, economic growth, and population in terms of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. In this study, we observed that most forest economic models focus on forest profit maximization and disregard climate impact. The empirical results suggest that the ecological footprint of forest products increases CO2 emissions. In addition, forest cover helps to reduce CO2 emissions. A case study of China’s tremendous growth and the associated CO2 emissions levels reported a recent decrease in such levels, largely due to an increase in forest cover. Although these findings are not exhaustive, they provide new insights into forestry economic models and the impact of climate change, offering theoretical and practical implications for future reference and forest governance.