Driving factors and decoupling analysis of fossil fuel related-carbon dioxide emissions in China

Abstract

Decoupling of economic development and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions signals that economic activity has entered the stage of sustainable development. If China, as the largest developing country, the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and the second-largest economic entity in the world, could achieve the decoupling target, it would have a significant impact on global GHG control and could construct a demonstrative precedent for the developing countries. Previous researches have provided some insights into either the determinants of changes in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions or decoupling analysis between the economic increase of regions and countries; however, these remain systematically understudied in the context of China’s entry into the ”New Era”. This study contributes to this body of knowledge by examining China's fossil fuel, economic, and environmental indicators such as CO2 emissions, driving factors, decoupling status, and decoupling efforts between 2000 and 2016. Based on China’s CO2 emissions estimates through eight-type of fossil fuel consumption in six subsectors, the analysis relies on extended Kaya identity and LMDI method to determine factors driving the changes of CO2 emissions. Moreover, a Tapio model is built for further study on the interrelationship between economic development and CO2 emissions. The results show that China's average annual CO2 emissions increased by 11.28% from 2000 to 2016. The economic increase is found to be the main driving force for the growth in CO2 emissions in the course of study years; energy intensity is the foremost driving force for the reduction of CO2 emission. The energy structure and industrial structure have not significantly inhibited changes in CO2 emissions as compared with energy intensity, while population-scale exhibited modest positive effect in changes in CO2 emission compared with economic increase. Decoupling analysis illustrates the weak decoupling in most of the study years, and even though there is expansive negative decoupling status in 2002–2004, 2008–2009, and the strong decoupling in 2014–2016. In addition, the total decoupling effort index suggests that China’s performance has entered a sustainable state in the course of study years as the results demonstrate the step-by-step shift of decoupling state from expansive negative decoupling to strong decoupling. The findings also reflect, to a certain extent, that China’s tremendous achievements in mitigating climate change and the “New Era” of its economic increase shifting from high-speed to high-quality. In the future, energy structure and industrial structure factors may become the main driving force for China to further decouple its economic development from CO2 emissions. Based on these findings, we propose that China should continue to bolster up the decendant trend of its energy intensity while fully exploiting the potential of energy structure and industry structure for further CO2 reductions.