Moving to a Low-Carbon Economy in China: Decoupling and Decomposition Analysis of Emission and Economy from a Sector Perspective

Rui Jiang, Yulin Zhou and Rongrong Li
Additional contact information
Rui Jiang: School of Economic and Management, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao 266580, China
Yulin Zhou: School of Economic and Management, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao 266580, China
Rongrong Li: School of Economic and Management, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao 266580, China

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 4, 1-12

Abstract: Understanding decoupling China’s emissions from the economy and identifying the drivers of emissions at a sector perspective can facilitate China’s move to a low-carbon economy that makes economic growth compatible with carbon reduction. This study combined decoupling and decomposition econometric techniques to quantify both the decoupling effects and the driving elements of carbon emissions in China’s six major sectors. The study found that the leading source of all carbon emissions in China come from the industrial sector, followed by the ‘Other’ sectors and the Transport sector. Further, the decoupling status in those sectors differed: Construction (weak decoupling), other (weak decoupling), Trade (weak decoupling), Industry (weak decoupling), Transport (expansive coupling) and Agriculture (expansive negative decoupling). Finally, the economic output effect becomes the major contributor for carbon emissions among these six sectors, followed by the energy intensity effect. However, the energy structure effect and carbon coefficient effect are both weak.

Keywords: decoupling status; decomposition; sector perspective; carbon emissions; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/4/978/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/4/978/ (text/html)

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:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:4:p:978-:d:138240

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().