Decoupling analysis on China's civil aviation carbon emissions from transportation revenue: A three-dimension decomposition framework

Abstract

With the rapid development of China's civil aviation, carbon emissions have brought severe environmental problems. Understanding the internal dynamic relationship between carbon emission and air transportation development is conducive for the industry to realize green development more effectively. Based on the Tapio decoupling theory, this study investigated the decoupling status between civil aviation carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and transportation revenue. A three-dimension decomposition model was constructed and applied to further explore the influencing factors of various decoupling status. The empirical study resulted in three key findings. Firstly, there is still much room for efficiency improvement in civil aviation overall transportation process. Compared with the external economic environment and the production process, the improvement of civil aviation operation process needs to be further strengthened. Secondly, the civil aviation carbon emission decoupling status was dominated by negative decoupling. The growth of air transportation revenue still deeply depends on the fossil fuel consumption. Thirdly, the decline of potential energy intensity significantly propels the decoupling progress of China's civil aviation; meanwhile, external economic environment and potential transportation intensity are key inhibitors of the decoupling development.