Mitigating China's process-related greenhouse gas emissions via supply chain management

Abstract

As the world's largest industrial producer, China's deep decarbonization of industrial process-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is essential in fulfilling the goal of reaching net zero emissions. Previous studies focused more on emission inventories and abatement technologies, however, final demand also plays a significant role in driving China's industrial process-related GHG emissions. Based on the environmentally extended input-output analysis and structural path analysis, this study explores detailed industrial process-related GHG emissions inventory and investigates critical supply chain paths of 17 products and 16 types of GHG emissions. The results show that industrial process-related GHG emissions reached 1887.1 Mt CO2-eq in 2018, of which more than three-fifths was induced by fixed capital formation. The entirety of the Construction sector amounted to 54.6% of the total embodied industrial process-related GHG emissions. After examining the embodied industrial process-related GHG emissions paths, critical economic sectors such as Construction, Nonmetallic Mineral, Chemical, and the paths of “Nonmetallic Mineral → Construction → Fixed capital formation and Nonmetallic Mineral → Nonmetallic Mineral → Construction → Fixed capital formation” were identified as the main contributor. In considering of the enormous challenges during mitigating GHG emissions from process-related industries, it is essential to identify and optimize critical supply chains, which provides new insights into China's industrial process transition towards a low-carbon economy.