Spatial Differences and Influencing Factors of Global Energy Consumption
全球能源消费的空间差异及影响因素分析

On a globe scale, different countries have varying energy consumption modes due to differences in geographical conditions and natural resources endowment. Discerning these differences can help design a reasonable system or strategic planning for energy conservation and emissions reduction. In this paper, 46 major countries (plus Hong Kong Special Admistrative Region of China) were selected. Then, the spatial distribution characteristics of energy consumption amount, structure, and efficiency were investigated and analyzed. Furthermore, influencing factors of these characteristics were examined in detail by introducing a new method. Data of consumption characteristics were obtained from the British Petroleum (BP). Data of influencing factors of these characteristics were obtain from the World Development Indicators (WDI) in the World Bank Database. The Hierarchical Partial Least Squares model (Hi_PLS) was used. One advantage of this model is to isolate the impact from collinearity in the independent variables. Results show that 1) energy consumption quantity is mainly concentrated in the northern part of the world, i.e., North America, Eurasia, and Asia. The per capita energy consumption, however, is mainly concentrated in countries with the endowment of high oil and gas resources or in economically developed areas. 2)The energy consumption structure of the Middle East 4 countries is significantly affected by their oil and gas resources endowment. Except for oil and gas, the other energy consumption of the Middle East 4 countries is almost zero. 3) Countries with high energy use efficiency are mainly distributed in Central & South America, Europe & Eurasia and Asia Pacific regions. However, countries in North America, the Middle East, and Africa have low energy use efficiency. 4) The most important influencing factors of energy consumption growth on a global scale are transportation and information industry activities (including infrastructure construction). The secondary influencing factors are medical industry activities and other economic activities. The tertiary influencing factors are R&D and agricultural activities. The promotion effect of energy consumption growth from these activities of population growth and its structure variation and the education industry is not marked, and then can be neglected. At last, measures of slowing global energy consumption and promoting different countries to transfer to a low carbon, clean and sustainable development mode were put forward.