Influencing Factors and Decoupling Elasticity of China’s Transportation Carbon Emissions

Yong Wang,Yingchun Zhang,Fei Zhang,Yu Zhou,Lin Zhu

doi:10.3390/en11051157

Yong Wang, Yingchun Zhang + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/en11051157

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Abstract

Transportation is an important source of carbon emissions in China. Reduction in carbon emissions in the transportation sector plays a key role in the success of China’s energy conservation and emissions reduction. This paper, for the first time, analyzes the drivers of carbon emissions in China’s transportation sector from 2000 to 2015 using the Generalized Divisia Index Method (GDIM). Based on this analysis, we use the improved Tapio model to estimate the decoupling elasticity between the development of China’s transportation industry and carbon emissions. The results show that: (1) the added value of transportation, energy consumption and per capita carbon emissions in transportation have always been major contributors to China’s carbon emissions from transportation. Energy carbon emission intensity is a key factor in reducing carbon emissions in transportation. The carbon intensity of the added value and the energy intensity have a continuous effect on carbon emissions in transportation; (2) compared with the increasing factors, the decreasing factors have a limited effect on inhibiting the increase in carbon emissions in China’s transportation industry; (3) compared with the total carbon emissions decoupling state, the per capita decoupling state can more accurately reflect the relationship between transportation and carbon emissions in China. The state of decoupling between the development of the transportation industry and carbon emissions in China is relatively poor, with a worsening trend after a short period of improvement; (4) the decoupling of transportation and carbon emissions has made energy-saving elasticity more important than the per capita emissions reduction elasticity effect. Based on the conclusions of this study, this paper puts forward some policy suggestions for reducing carbon emissions in the transportation industry.

Highlights

Since the beginning of this century, the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, represented by carbon dioxide, has been steadily increasing, leading to global warming and more frequent natural disasters
M’raihi et al [22] investigated the effects of the main driving factors of carbon emissions changes from road freight transportation in Tunisia using decomposition analysis, mainly the Logarithmic Mean Divisia (LMDI), and the results showed that economic growth and average petroleum emissions were the main driving factors
To ensure the accuracy of the estimation results, this paper fully considers eight kinds of fossil fuels, including raw coal, coke, crude oil, fuel oil, gasoline, kerosene, diesel oil and natural gas; CO2 is the total carbon emissions from transportation energy consumption in units of 104 tons; Ei is the consumption of fossil fuels in units of 104 tons or one hundred million cubic meters; CVi is the average low calorific value in units of kJ/kg or kJ/m3 ; CCFi is the unit of carbon content of calorific value in tons/TJ; CSi is the carbon fixation rate; Oi is the rate of carbon oxidation; 44 is the molecular weight of CO2 ; and 12 is the atomic weight of C

Summary

Introduction

Since the beginning of this century, the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, represented by carbon dioxide, has been steadily increasing, leading to global warming and more frequent natural disasters. All countries in the world are constantly seeking solutions and striving to achieve the goal of lower carbon emissions: the United Nations (UN) has held many international negotiations on climate change and formulated the “United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change” [1] and the “Kyoto Protocol” [2]; in 2016, leaders from more than 170 countries jointly signed the Paris Agreement [3] focusing on climate change issues at the UN Headquarters. As the world’s largest developing country, with its rapid economic development, China’s carbon emissions remain high. China’s carbon emissions account for about one-third of the world’s total carbon emissions and rank first in the world in carbon emissions [4].

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