Carbon emission and economic output of China’s marine fishery – A decoupling efforts analysis

Abstract

While marine capture fishery contributes to ever-increasing economic output, it also produces ever-increasing carbon emissions. Increasing the economic output of marine capture fishery while controlling its carbon emissions requires a better understanding of the relationship between the economic output of marine capture fishery and its carbon emissions. To this end, this work investigated the relationship between carbon emission and economic output, the key influencing factors of carbon emission, and the decoupling efforts in China’s marine capture fishery using decoupling index, decomposition technique, and decoupling efforts model. The results indicate: (i) Decoupling state of all coastal regions got improved, especially Guangdong province which presented the best decoupling state, the stably strong decoupling. (ii) Carbon intensity is not only major contributor to carbon reduction, but also major effort maker to decoupling progress. On the contrary, industry structure was the primary inhibitor in almost coastal regions. (iii) All coastal regions made decoupling efforts in studying period, and over half of them made strong decoupling efforts. Last but not least, some policy implications are proposed.