The Driving Forces of Changes in CO2 Emissions in China: A Structural Decomposition Analysis

Bowen Xiao,Dongxiao Niu,Xiaodan Guo

doi:10.3390/en9040259

Abstract

Understanding the drivers of changes in CO2 emissions is vital for a range of stakeholders. Hence, this paper explores the main drivers of CO2 emissions in China using structural decomposition analysis based on constant price and non-comparative input-output tables. The driving forces at both nationwide and industrial levels are divided into nine effects. To investigate the effects from an energy perspective, all nine effects are further decomposed into three kinds of fossil fuels. Our empirical results show that the energy intensity effect can significantly stimulate emission reduction. Though the energy structure effect is weak, the trend of which over time shows that the energy structure is shifting to low carbon. Additionally, among final demand effect, the urban consumption, investment, and export expansion effects predominantly overwhelm other effects and contribute significantly to CO2 emissions. Although the short term Leontief effects fluctuate greatly, the total Leontief effect in 1997–2010 reveals that it can significantly contribute to CO2 emissions. Finally, detailed and concrete policy implications for CO2 emission reduction are provided.

Highlights

Anthropogenic climate change, including global warming, acid deposition and ozone depletion is one of the major challenges the planet faces [1,2]
To get more precise calculation results, we introduce loss coefficients of burning fossil fuels, which are collected from State Environmental Protection Administration and National Information Center [42]
The energy structure effects turn to negative step by step, which means that the energy structure is shifting to low low carbon, carbon, and and tends tends to to be be more more reasonable

Summary

Introduction

Anthropogenic climate change, including global warming, acid deposition and ozone depletion is one of the major challenges the planet faces [1,2]. CO2 emissions will reach 11.4 billion tons in 2030 without any emission reduction constraints [4]. Against this backdrop, it seems more critical to analyze influencing factors of CO2 emission changes from multiple points of view and different level. With the introduction of an extended input–output framework, research on energy consumption and CO2 emissions using input–output method is feasible [5,6]. The second method mainly analyzed the variation of energy consumption and CO2 emissions from a perspective of production structural change [9].

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion