Decomposition Analysis and Trend Prediction of CO2 Emissions in China’s Transportation Industry

Ming Meng,Manyu Li

doi:10.3390/su12072596

Abstract

China’s transportation industry has become one of the major industries with rapid growth in CO2 emissions, which has a significant impact in controlling the increase of CO2 emissions. Therefore, it is extremely necessary to use a hybrid trend extrapolation model to project the future carbon dioxide emissions of China. On account of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) inventory method of carbon accounting, this paper applied the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) model to study the factors affected by CO2 emissions. The affected factors are further subdivided into the scale of employees, per capita carrying capacity, transport intensity, average transportation distance, energy input and output structure, energy intensity and industrial structure. The results are as follows: (1) Per capita carrying capacity is the most important factor to promote the growth of CO2 emissions, while industrial structure is the main reason to inhibit the growth of CO2 emissions; (2) the expansion of the number of employees has played a positive role in the growth of CO2 emissions and the organization and technology management of the transportation industry should be strengthened; (3) comprehensive transportation development strategy can make the transportation intensity effect effectively reduce CO2 emissions; (4) the CO2 emissions of the transportation industry will continue to increase during 2018–2025, with a cumulative value of about 336.11 million tons. The purpose of this study is to provide scientific guidance for the government’s emission reduction measures in the transportation industry. In addition, there are still some deficiencies in the study of its influencing factors in this paper and further improvements are necessary for the subsequent research expansion.

Highlights

At present, the intensification of the greenhouse effect and its derivative effects is an important issue of common concern to governments of all countries [1,2]
CO2 emissions generated by eight energy sources consumed by the transportation industry gradually increased from 2001 to 2017, with an average ascending rate of 7.97%, from 314.35 million tons in 2001 to 1.07 billion tons in 2017
China’s opening to the outside world had been further strengthened, which required the support of the transportation industry, leading to the fast increase of CO2 emissions

Summary

Introduction

The intensification of the greenhouse effect and its derivative effects is an important issue of common concern to governments of all countries [1,2]. Studies show that the CO2 emissions from fossil fuels are the most significant reason for the exacerbated greenhouse effect [3,4,5]. As a country with high production efficiency, China consumes a large amount of fossil energy and emits a lot of CO2 emissions. For the sake of restraining the growth of CO2 emissions from fossil energy, the Paris Agreement was convened at the end of 2015. In the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) submitted to the Paris Agreement, it was pointed out that China’s CO2 emissions shall get to the crest value around 2030 and strive to reach the peak with the fastest speed and shortest time [6]. The Chinese government promised that by 2030, the CO2 emission per unit of GDP shall be 60% to 65% less than in 2005 [7]

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Discussion

Conclusion