Decoupling of economic growth from CO2 emissions in Yangtze River Economic Belt sectors: A sectoral correlation effects perspective

Abstract

For making clear decoupling state of sector economic growth from CO2 emissions in the input–output process, in this paper, we firstly explore the correlation effects of sector CO2 emissions by defining it as comprehensive effects of sector CO2 emissions from fossil energy consumption in the initial input, intermediate products, final products and circular correlation of the input–output process, and decomposing it into direct effect, full effect, Spreading effect and sensitive effect. Then we set up a methodology of correlation effects decoupling index to discover their decoupling status and sources. Finally, we concretely investigate the breakthrough points of sector CO2 emissions reduction in the case study of the Yangtze River Economic Belt (the YREB) sectors of China. The results show: (1) Correlation effects of CO2 emissions is higher in the YREB energy-intensive sectors. (2) The YREB sectors of decoupling of economic growth from CO2 emissions decreases obviously from 89.7% to 62.1% from 2007–2012 to 2013–2017, which is impacted by decoupling deterioration of correlation effects of CO2 emissions in the energy-intensive sectors. (3) The YREB key sectors of CO2 emissions reduction are the energy-intensive sectors with focus on the parts of decoupling deterioration of correlation effects of sector CO2 emissions. The proposed analysis framework is efficient for analyzing decoupling of correlation effects of CO2 emissions in the YREB sectors of China, and can also be applied to similar analysis and extended to multi-regional analysis.