Towards a decoupling between regional economic growth and CO2 emissions in China's mining industry: A comprehensive decomposition framework

Yonglin Li, Zhili Zuo, Yue Cheng, Jinhua Cheng and Deyi Xu

Resources Policy, 2023, vol. 80, issue C

Abstract: As the underlying industry for energy production, the mining industry contributes to economic growth while consuming large amounts of energy and generating CO2 emissions. This paper adopts the Tapio model to investigate the decoupling process of China's mining industry at the national, regional, and provincial levels. A comprehensive decomposition framework is constructed to identify the drivers of decoupling. The results reveal that: (1) The mining industry has performed relatively well in decoupling, with weak decoupling being the dominant state and a strong decoupling achieved. The main contributors are the output scale effect (YS) and the potential energy intensity effect (PEI). There are fluctuations in technology and efficiency-related effects. (2) There is a disparity in decoupling status and driving mechanisms between regions. The eastern region shows the best decoupling performance, benefiting from PEI. The decoupling status in the central region fluctuates considerably, with YS being the primary influence. The western region mainly presents a weak decoupling state, with the boosting effect of output technology increasing year by year. (3) Weak decoupling is a common inter-provincial state. Spatial heterogeneity exists in the driving effects across provinces. Policy recommendations for decoupling progress and low carbon development in the mining industry are presented.

Keywords: Decoupling; Carbon emission; Mining industry; Index decomposition analysis; Production-theoretical decomposition analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301420722007140
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jrpoli:v:80:y:2023:i:c:s0301420722007140

DOI: 10.1016/j.resourpol.2022.103271

Access Statistics for this article

Resources Policy is currently edited by R. G. Eggert

More articles in Resources Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().