Exploring the provincial-level consumption drivers of the sustainability gap in China under the framework of carbon planetary boundary: The carbon exceedance footprint

Abstract

To achieve provincial collaborative management of absolute sustainability, carbon footprint needs to be applied within carbon planetary boundaries. We constructed the provincial-level production-based carbon exceedance and consumption-based carbon exceedance footprint via an environmentally extended multiregional input-output model and downscaled carbon planetary boundaries. We quantified the extent to which consumption-based provinces' demands lead to the carbon exceedance of each province in China. The results are as following: (1) In 2017, the total carbon exceedance was 4211.98 Mt. 53.86% of the total carbon exceedance is embodied in interprovincial trade flows, which are mainly transferred from the northern and northeastern regions of China to China's eastern coastal regions. (2) More than half of the total carbon exceedance embodied in exports is supplied by coal mineral-rich provinces, such as Inner Mongolia, Hebei, Shanxi, Shandong, Liaoning, Henan and Xinjiang. (3) A total of 23.42%, 15.87% and 9.29% of the carbon exceedance embodied in net imports are used to meet final demand for Guangdong, Zhejiang and Beijing, respectively. The obtained results are helpful for the redistribution of carbon planetary boundary transgression responsibilities among provinces and the formulation of absolute sustainable carbon management policies.