Analysis of CO2 Emissions in China’s Manufacturing Industry Based on Extended Logarithmic Mean Division Index Decomposition

Jian Liu,Wen Sun,Qingshan Yang,Yu Zhang,Yiming Xu

doi:10.3390/su11010226

Abstract

China is the world’s largest emitter of CO2. As the largest sector of China’s fossil energy consumption and carbon emissions, manufacturing plays an important role in achieving emission reduction targets in China. Using the extended logarithmic mean division index (LMDI) decomposition model, this paper decomposed the factors that affect the CO2 emissions of China’s manufacturing industry into eight effects. The results show the following: (1) China’s manufacturing CO2 emissions increased from 1.91 billion tons in 1995 to 6.25 billion tons in 2015, with an average annual growth rate of 6%. Ferrous metal smelting and rolling were the largest sources of carbon dioxide emissions, followed by chemical raw materials and products and then non-metallic minerals. (2) During the research period, the industrial activity effects were the most important factor leading to increased CO2 emissions in manufacturing and energy intensity was the most important factor in promoting the reduction of CO2 emissions from manufacturing. The investment intensity was the second most influential factor leading to the increase in China’s manufacturing CO2 emissions after the industrial scale and this even exceeded the industrial activity effect in some time periods (2000–2005). R&D efficiency and R&D intensity were shown to have significant roles in reducing CO2 emissions in China’s manufacturing industry. The input of R&D innovation factors is an effective way to achieve emission reductions in China’s manufacturing industry. (3) There were differences in the driving factors of CO2 emissions in the manufacturing industry in different periods that were closely related to the international and domestic economic development environment and the relevant policies of the Chinese government regarding energy conservation and emission reduction. (4) Sub-sector research found that the factors that affect the reduction of CO2 emissions in various industries appear to be differentiated. This paper has important policy significance to allow the Chinese government to implement effective energy-saving and emission reduction measures and to reduce CO2 emissions from the manufacturing industry.

Highlights

Global warming has become one of the biggest environmental issues currently facing mankind
In 2016, the Chinese NPC Standing Committee authorized China to join the "Paris Agreement on Climate Change"; the Chinese government has promised that its carbon emissions will peak by 2030 and that the unit Gross Domestic Product (GDP) amount of carbon dioxide emissions will be reduced by 60–65% compared with 2005
The results show that the industrial activity effect is the main factor that promotes the increase of CO2 emissions and the energy intensity effect is the main factor that inhibits an increase in CO2 emissions, which is consistent with most previous studies [43,44,46,48]

Summary

Introduction

Global warming has become one of the biggest environmental issues currently facing mankind. Among the six greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2) contributes the most to the greenhouse effect and accounted for approximately 78% of total greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel combustion and industrialization from 1970 to 2010 [1]. It has become a common aspiration of all countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, such as CO2 and realize a low-carbon circular economy. At the Copenhagen Conference in 2009, the Chinese government, adhering to the basic framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol, proposed a target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions from GDP by 40–45% by 2020 compared with 2005 and included it in the long-term plan for national economic and social development as a binding target. The Chinese government formulated a series of energy conservation and emission reduction policies to undertake emission reduction as a responsibility and duty [3,4,5,6]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion