Sector-level evaluation of China’s CO2 emissions: Trend evolution and index ranking

Abstract

In China’s low-carbon development progress, industrial sectors play a crucial role in reducing CO2 emissions and maintaining economic growth targets. Because the Chinese government is promoting industrial structure transformation for “high-quality economic development,” the dominant CO2 emitters have changed in recent years. It is important to identify the trend evolution of industrial CO2 emitters and implement targeted measures and policies for CO2 emission control at the sector level. In this paper, a hybrid input–output model is adopted to assess the situation and trend of sectoral CO2 emissions from 2002 to 2017 in China. Demand-side drivers of sectorial embodied CO2 emissions are discussed. Based on the embodied CO2 emission decomposition of 27 sectors, a CO2 emission evaluation index is defined for CO2 emission ranking and key sectors for embodied CO2 emissions are identified. For the key CO2 emitters, we provide targeted policy suggestions for CO2 emission mitigation from the perspective of trend evolution and index ranking.The results indicate the following. (1) 2015 is a turning point for China’s CO2 emission mitigation progress, because the previously increasing embodied CO2 begins to decrease from 2015 to 2017. (2) Although the Construction sector stimulates a large amount of CO2 emissions at present, the major driving forces of CO2 emissions have gradually changed from infrastructure construction to the increasing demand of consumer goods, service industry, and export of technology-intensive products. (3) The CO2 emission intensity of the Electric Power and Heat Supply sector has increased, and promotion of renewable energy consumption is urgently needed. (4) From the demand-driven aspect, tertiary industry has greater CO2 emission potential than heavy industry.