An integrated perspective on the spatial–temporal characteristics of China’s manufacturing carbon emissions at the regional and industry levels

Abstract

Given that manufacturing industry is the second-largest source of carbon emissions in China, effective carbon emission reduction plans require a comprehensive examination of the spatial–temporal characteristics (STC) of manufacturing carbon emissions (MCE) from both regional and industrial perspectives. However, most studies on the STC of MCE focus solely on regional perspectives, overlooking the importance of integrating both regional and industrial perspectives to fully understand the STC of China’s MCE. Moreover, there is limited research on the spatial disparities in China’s MCE. Building on a detailed carbon emissions inventory of 27 manufacturing industries across 30 provinces in China from 2001 to 2020, this study employed descriptive statistics, natural breakpoint classification, spatial–temporal transition, and the Dagum Gini ratio with its cluster decomposition method to analyze the STC of MCE from regional and industrial perspectives. The assessment of STC of MCE includes an examination of both spatial–temporal changes and disparities. Results show that the MCE of the three regions in China follow the order of east > central > west, with most of the super-heavy-duty MCE and heavy-duty MCE provinces located in the eastern and central regions. China’s three-tier manufacturing industries exhibit a pattern of “low-end high-end industries with small carbon emissions, while mid-end industries have large carbon emissions”. The regional differences show that the gap in the high-end MCE among the three regions is gradually narrowing, while the gap between mid-end MCE in the east and those in the central and western regions is widening. The overall disparities of MCE exhibited a continuous widening trend. In terms of sources, inter-regional disparities had the highest contribution rate, followed by intra-regional disparities, and super-dense disparities had the least contribution. Based on the research findings, this paper proposes targeted policy suggestions for carbon emission reduction in the manufacturing industry.