According to the economic and energy consumption statistics in Jiangsu Province, we combined the GM (1, 1) grey model and polynomial regression to forecast carbon emissions. Historical and projected emissions were decomposed using the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) approach to assess the relative contribution of different factors to emission variability. The results showed that carbon emissions will continue to increase in Jiangsu province during 2015–2020 period and cumulative carbon emissions will increase by 39.5487 million tons within the forecast period. The growth of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita plays the greatest positive role in driving carbon emission growth. Furthermore, the improvement of energy usage efficiency is the primary factor responsible for reducing carbon emissions. Factors of population, industry structure adjustment and the optimization of fuel mix also help to reduce carbon emissions. Based on the LMDI analysis, we provide some advice for policy-makers in Jiangsu and other provinces in China.

Developing wind energy is one of the win win measures in response to climate changes and energy security. In order to promote technical innovation in the wind-energy industry, the government grants various fiscal subsidies to wind-energy companies every year. To acquire these subsidies, enterprises often employ those with political backgrounds as members of the board of directors and board of supervisors. On the one hand, the acquisition of subsidies may indeed promote the technical innovation capacity of enterprises, but, on the other hand, due to the existence of “the grabbing hand”, the technical innovation capacity of enterprises may be weakened. We selected 35 Chinese wind-energy listed companies to analyze the relationship between political connections, subsidies and the technical innovation capacity. Results indicate that, political connections to an enterprise weaken its innovative potential and achievement. Moreover, the higher the strength of political connections is, the stronger the negative impact it will bring to the innovative capacity of the enterprise. Modulation of government subsidies, however, can alleviate the negative effects of political connections.