Drivers of the national and regional crop production-derived greenhouse gas emissions in China

Abstract

Modern crop production practices are now recognized as being responsible for a significant volume of greenhouse gas emissions. Here, an analysis was undertaken to quantify crop production-related greenhouse gas emissions in China over the period 1991–2015, using Kaya’s equation to identify its drivers. The Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index method was adopted to separately quantify the contributions of the efficiency, structure, economy and labor factors. The analysis identified that the efficiency, structure and labor factors acted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions of 455.93, 49.42, 98.75 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalents, respectively, while the economy factor contributed to increase of 637.30 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalents. On a regional basis, the contributions to the national greenhouse gas emissions differed, ranging from −8.24 to 20.86 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalents. Furthermore, the influence of efficiency, structure, economy and labor factors also varied significantly by region. For each region, the management of different factors or combinations of these would be necessary in order to decrease the greenhouse gas emissions in the future: for the northern, north-western and north-eastern regions, it was the efficiency, structure and labor factors; for the eastern region it was the economy factor; for the central-southern region it was the economy and the labor factors; and for the south-western region it was all four factors. Regarding the effect of the efficiency factor, controlling this requires the reduction of chemical fertilizer usage and submerged irrigation time, and the selection of good varieties. With respect to the structure factor effect, the optimization of the agriculture structure is required, particularly in Gansu, Hainan and Shanghai. As for the economic factor, managing its effect requires a moderate economic growth rate with a higher quality of economic development, and the acceleration of the development of agricultural science and technology innovation, guidance and promotion. Finally, the labor factor effect may be controlled with the improvement of the level of agricultural intensification. This study identified, decomposed and quantified the driving factors of the national and regional crop production-derived greenhouse gas emissions and provided practice ways for greenhouse gas inhabitation in China.