Using LMDI to analyze the decoupling of carbon dioxide emissions by China's manufacturing industry

Abstract

This paper adopts the Log Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) method based on the extended Kaya identity to explore the impacts of industry structure, economic output, energy structure, energy intensity, and emission factors on the total carbon dioxide emissions from China's manufacturing industry during the period 1996–2010. In addition, we calculate the trend of decoupling effects in manufacturing industry in China by presenting a theoretical framework for decoupling. As the results suggest, China’s manufacturing industry has gone through four decoupling stages: strong negative decoupling stage (1996–1999), weak decoupling stage (2000–2001), expansive negative decoupling stage (2002–2004) and weak decoupling stage (2005–2010). Then we analyze the reasons for different decoupling stages during each period. The results show that the increase in economic output has the largest effect on the increase of CO2 emissions and that the decrease in energy intensity has incurred a considerable decrease in CO2 emissions. Moreover, the impacts of emission factors, industry structure, and energy structure on CO2 emissions are relatively small and not the determining factors to the changes of CO2 emissions.