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

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.

[1]  Wei Zhang,et al.  Decoupling Analysis of China’s Product Sector Output and Its Embodied Carbon Emissions—An Empirical Study Based on Non-Competitive I-O and Tapio Decoupling Model , 2017 .

[2]  Yaoqiu Kuang,et al.  Decomposition Analysis in Decoupling Transport Output from Carbon Emissions in Guangdong Province, China , 2016 .

[3]  José M. Cansino,et al.  How far is Colombia from decoupling? Two-level decomposition analysis of energy consumption changes , 2018 .

[4]  Christopher J. Koroneos,et al.  The decomposition of CO2 emissions from energy use in Greece before and during the economic crisis and their decoupling from economic growth , 2017 .

[5]  J. Sun.  Changes in energy consumption and energy intensity: A complete decomposition model , 1998 .

[6]  Rongrong Li,et al.  Decoupling and Decomposition Analysis of Carbon Emissions from Industry: A Case Study from China , 2016 .

[7]  K. Bi,et al.  Decoupling indicators of CO2 emissions from the tourism industry in China: 1990–2012 , 2014 .

[8]  Jhony Choon Yeong Ng,et al.  Measurement Research on the Decoupling Effect of Industries’ Carbon Emissions—Based on the Equipment Manufacturing Industry in China , 2016 .

[9]  Antonio Rodríguez Andrés,et al.  Determinants of CO2 emissions in Brazil and Russia between 1992 and 2011: A decomposition analysis , 2016 .

[10]  Fuquan Zhao,et al.  Measuring Energy Efficiency in China’s Transport Sector , 2017 .

[11]  M. Grand.  Carbon emission targets and decoupling indicators , 2016 .

[12]  David Banister,et al.  Decoupling transport from economic growth: Extending the debate to include environmental and social externalities , 2016 .

[13]  Rongrong Li,et al.  An Analysis of Decoupling and Influencing Factors of Carbon Emissions from the Transportation Sector in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Area, China , 2017 .

[14]  Boqiang Lin,et al.  Analysis of carbon emissions reduction of China's metallurgical industry , 2018 .

[15]  Ricardo Martinez-Botas,et al.  Reducing China’s road transport sector CO2 emissions to 2050: Technologies, costs and decomposition analysis , 2015 .

[16]  Danae Diakoulaki,et al.  Decomposition analysis for assessing the progress in decoupling industrial growth from CO2 emissions in the EU manufacturing sector , 2007 .

[17]  Rafaa Mraihi,et al.  Carbon emissions growth and road freight: Analysis of the influencing factors in Tunisia , 2015 .

[18]  Jing Sun,et al.  Factor decomposition of carbon emissions in Chinese megacities. , 2019, Journal of environmental sciences.

[19]  Yang Zhang,et al.  Transport energy consumption and saving in China , 2014 .

[20]  Zheng Li,et al.  LMDI Decomposition of Energy-Related CO 2 Emissions Based on Energy and CO 2 Allocation Sankey Diagrams: The Method and an Application to China , 2018 .

[21]  Shinji Kaneko,et al.  Decomposing the decoupling of CO2 emissions and economic growth in Brazil , 2011 .

[22]  Bangzhu Zhu,et al.  Decoupling analysis of world economic growth and CO2 emissions: A study comparing developed and developing countries , 2018, Journal of Cleaner Production.

[23]  G. Timilsina,et al.  Factors affecting transport sector CO2 emissions growth in Latin American and Caribbean countries: An LMDI decomposition analysis , 2009 .

[24]  Baochen Yang,et al.  The Allocation of Carbon Intensity Reduction Target by 2020 among Industrial Sectors in China , 2017 .

[25]  Yong Geng,et al.  Uncovering driving factors of carbon emissions from China’s mining sector , 2016 .

[26]  Andres Felipe Guzman,et al.  Road freight transport decoupling: A comparative analysis between the United Kingdom and Spain , 2014 .

[27]  R. Jensen,et al.  An Estimate of the Age Distribution's Effect on Carbon Dioxide Emissions , 2013 .

[28]  Shinji Kaneko,et al.  Driving forces behind the stagnancy of China's energy-related CO2 emissions from 1996 to 1999: The relative importance of structural change, intensity change and scale change , 2005 .

[29]  Rongrong Li,et al.  Moving Low-Carbon Construction Industry in Jiangsu Province: Evidence from Decomposition and Decoupling Models , 2017 .

[30]  D. Haralambopoulos,et al.  CO2 emissions in Greece for 1990-2002: A decomposition analysis and comparison of results using the Arithmetic Mean Divisia Index and Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index techniques , 2008 .

[31]  Yongxian Su,et al.  Decomposition Analysis of Carbon Emission Factors from Energy Consumption in Guangdong Province from 1990 to 2014 , 2017 .

[32]  Rongrong Li,et al.  Moving to a Low-Carbon Economy in China: Decoupling and Decomposition Analysis of Emission and Economy from a Sector Perspective , 2018 .

[33]  C. Shao,et al.  Influencing Mechanism Analysis of Holiday Activity–Travel Patterns on Transportation Energy Consumption and Emissions in China , 2017 .

[34]  Alexander Vaninsky,et al.  Factorial decomposition of CO2 emissions: A generalized Divisia index approach , 2014 .

[35]  Limin Du,et al.  Regional allocation of carbon dioxide abatement in China , 2012 .

[36]  B. W. Ang,et al.  A survey of index decomposition analysis in energy and environmental studies , 2000 .

[37]  M. Kharbach,et al.  CO2 emissions in Moroccan road transport sector: Divisia, Cointegration, and EKC analyses , 2017 .

[38]  Shinji Kaneko,et al.  Decomposition of CO2 emissions change from energy consumption in Brazil: Challenges and policy implications , 2011 .

[39]  P. Tapio.  Towards the theory of decoupling : Degrees of decoupling in the EU and the case of road traffic in Finland between 1970 and 2001 , 2022 .