Abstract
The CO2 emissions in China's transport sector increased from 349.00 Mt in 2005 to 723.87 Mt in 2017. Thus, a number of climate change policies are being implemented to adjust regional structure and to decrease the emissions in China's transport sector at the regional level. However, few studies explored the impact of changes in regional structure (that is, measured regional share of the added value of transport sector) on emissions in China's transport sector. Therefore, based on the Kaya identity and LMDI analysis, we decompose 8 factors (including carbon intensity, energy structure, energy intensity, turnover intensity, transport intensity, regional structure, per-capita traffic activity, and population size) to analyze the driving factors of emissions in China's transport sector. The period 1997-2017 is divided into four phases according to the growth rate of emissions. The results show that regional structure increased CO2 emissions in China's transport sector between 2013 and 2017. The fast transport development in the Southwest region, reflected by the increase in the share of total transport value added, resulted in emissions growth during 2013-2017. Moreover, the change in the growth rate of the regional transport sector's value added is positively correlated with the change in the regional share of value added, which is positively correlated with the change in regional emissions.
Highlights
Climate change and global warming have attracted more and more attention and become a serious challenge for many countries
The results show that transport energy intensity and economic effect were the main factors for the increase of CO2 emissions, while energy structure, turnover of goods per unit of industrial output and industrialization were the main factors for the reduction
The period 1997-2017 is divided into four phases according to the characteristics and growth rate of carbon emissions: the period 1997-2005 is a period of high growth, the period 2005-2012 is a period of low growth, the period 2012-2013 is a period of emission reduction, and the period 2013-2017 is a period of stable growth
Summary
Climate change and global warming have attracted more and more attention and become a serious challenge for many countries. In order to curb the trend of global warming, the seventh World Government Summit, held in Dubai in February 2019, called for a more sustainable and inclusive “Globalization 4.0” to address the risks and challenges ahead. As the world’s largest carbon emitter, China’s rapid growth in carbon emissions over the past 40 years has attracted global attention (Guo et al, 2018). From the General Debate of the UN General Assembly at its seventyfive session in September 2020 to the Climate Ambition Summit in December 2020, China has repeatedly stated its goal of reaching a peak in carbon emissions by 2030, carbon neutral by 2060 (Li et al, 2021). The 2020 Central Economic Work Conference (CEWC) identified achieving peak carbon and carbon neutrality as one of the eight key tasks of the 2021 (Liu et al, 2021)
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