What drives the temporal and spatial differences of CO2 emissions in the transport sector? Empirical evidence from municipalities in China

Xianmei Liu, Rui Peng, Chao Zhong, Mingyue Wang and Pibin Guo

Energy Policy, 2021, vol. 159, issue C

Abstract: To formulate efficient emission reduction policies, we explore the driving forces of CO2 emissions from the transport sector of four municipalities in China during 2000–2017 based on the temporal-spatial decomposition analysis model. The key factors causing the differences in CO2 emissions will be investigated in important years (i.e., 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2017). Two main results are found: (1) Energy intensity, as well as transportation intensity, is the dominant restraining factor confronting the transport sector’s CO2 emissions, while the income effect is reversed. (2) The results of the analysis further show what drives different emission levels (e.g., income effect, energy structure, and transportation structure) and four municipalities have greater potential in the reduction of CO2 emissions. We further discuss the root causes of the spatial-temporal differences in carbon emissions in the transport sector and analyse their future trends in detail. Based on this, we propose to pay attention to strengthen coordinated emission reduction, optimize the transportation mode, adjust the energy consumption structure, and select emission reduction strategies according to local conditions. In addition, emission reductions in the transportation sector are also affected by various factors such as social systems and transformation costs, and further research is needed in the future.

Keywords: Driving forces; CO2 emissions; Temporal decomposition analysis; Spatial decomposition analysis; Transport sector; Municipalities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421521004730
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:enepol:v:159:y:2021:i:c:s0301421521004730

DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2021.112607

Access Statistics for this article

Energy Policy is currently edited by N. France

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