The Spatial Pattern, Driving Factors and Evolutionary Trend of Energy Cooperation and Consumption in the “Belt and Road Initiative” Countries

Abstract

Controlling the sustained growth of energy consumption is a common concern worldwide. This research focuses on energy consumption in the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) countries, which play an important role in shaping the global energy market, to achieve better energy cooperation among them. Our methodology involves analyzing the spatial-temporal energy cooperation pattern among these countries, uncovering the main drivers, and forecasting the future scale and structure of energy consumption in each BRI country. The results show that: (1) After the “Belt and Road Initiative”, energy cooperation between BRI countries is strengthened with Poland, Russian Federation and India playing more vital roles in this cooperation network; (2) Affluent level and energy intensity are the main drivers of energy consumption. The former contributes to the growth of energy consumption and is relatively more important in the developing BRI countries, while the latter shows negative effects especially in the more developed BRI countries. Population scale also contributes to the growth of energy consumption, but the effect is small and diminishing. (3) Future energy consumption of BRI countries shows an overall upward trend. Reducing energy consumption will still be a major challenge confronting BRI countries, especially for China, Russian Federation, India and Indonesia.

Keywords: Energy consumption, LMDI, ARIMA, "Belt and Road Initiative" countries