Driving Factors and Future Prediction of Carbon Emissions in the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ Countries

Lili Sun, Huijuan Cui and Quansheng Ge
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Lili Sun: Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Huijuan Cui: Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Quansheng Ge: Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 17, 1-21

Abstract: ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ (B&R) countries play critical roles in mitigating global carbon emission under the Paris agreement, but their driving factors and feasibility to reduce carbon emissions remain unclear. This paper aims to identify the main driving factors (MDFs) behind carbon emissions and predict the future emissions trajectories of the B&R countries under different social-economic pathways based on the extended STIRPAT (stochastic impacts by regression on population, affluence, and technology) model. The empirical results indicate that GDP per capita and energy consumption structure are the MDFs that promote carbon emission, while energy intensity improvement is the MDF that inhibits carbon emission. Population, as another MDF, has a dual impact across countries. The carbon emissions in all B&R countries are predicted to increase from SSP1 to SSP3, but emissions trajectories vary across countries. Under the SSP1 scenario, carbon emissions in over 60% of B&R countries can peak or decline, and the aggregated peak emissions will amount to 21.97 Gt in 2030. Under the SSP2 scenario, about half of the countries can peak or decline, while their peak emissions and peak time are both higher and later than SSP1, the highest emission of 25.35 Gt is observed in 2050. Conversely, over 65% of B&R countries are incapable of either peaking or declining under the SSP3 scenario, with the highest aggregated emission of 33.10 Gt in 2050. It is further suggested that decline of carbon emission occurs when the inhibiting effects of energy intensity exceed the positive impacts of other MDFs in most B&R countries.

Keywords: Belt and Road Initiative; carbon emission; driving factors; SSP scenario (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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