Decomposition of driving factors of industry-related CO2 emissions and its decoupling with economic growth in Fujian Province, China

Abstract

The emission of CO2 from major sectors and key industries are the predominant sources of regional CO2 emissions. It is the prerequisite to promote sectoral carbon emissions reduction, to cla-rify their influencing factors and investigate their relationship with regional economic growth. It is also of great significance for the implementation of regional total carbon emissions control. Using the Logarithmic mean Divisia index method (LMDI) and the Tapio decoupling model, we analyzed the driving factors, and decoupling status with economic growth of 13 major carbon emissions industries in Fujian Province from 1997 to 2017. The results showed that the electricity and heat production and supply industry was the major source of CO2 emissions in Fujian Province, with an increase of 101.74 Mt (from 18.89 Mt to 120.63 Mt) during the period 1997 to 2017. The top three industries with the fastest annual growth rate in CO2 emissions were non-ferrous metal smelting and rolling processing industry (18.1%), textile industry (12.1%), and ferrous metal smelting and rolling processing industry (12.1%). Among the influence factors for the changes in carbon emissions in 13 major industries, economic growth effect and population scale effect were the main positive driving factors, while the restraining effects of energy structure, energy intensity, and industrial structure were continuously increasing. In terms of decoupling relationship, the decoupling index between economic growth and industry-related CO2 emissions showed a downward trend on the whole. Since the 11th Five-Year-Plan period, some industries had begun to show strong decoupling to some extent. The farming, forestry, animal husbandry, fishery and water conservancy industry exhibited expansive negative decoupling, whereas the electricity and heat production and supply industry exhibited weak negative decoupling during 13th Five-Year Plan period. The effects of energy structure and energy intensity had substantial impacts on the decoupling with economic growth for various industries. The industrial structure effect had a smaller impact on the decoupling with economic growth, while the population scale effect had almost no impact.