Temporal changes in China's production and consumption-based CO2 emissions and the factors contributing to changes

Abstract As the largest carbon emitter in the world, China is actively promoting carbon emission reduction and low-carbon sustainable development. To better formulate low-carbon transformation measures, we calculated and compared China's production-based carbon emissions (PD-CEs) and consumption-based carbon emissions (CD-CEs) from 2000 to 2014 based on the Multi-Regional Input–Output tables. We also performed a structural decomposition analysis (SDA) to investigate the factors contributing to changes in China's PD-CEs and CD-CEs. The study's findings are as follows: First, China's PD-CEs are continually larger than its CD-CEs, such that China is a net exporter of emissions. However, China's exported emissions and net exported emissions peaked at 2200 and 1786 Mt., respectively, as of 2007. In 2014, China's net exported emissions were 1371 Mt., down 23.25% compared with 2007. Second, China's PD-CEs mainly serve the domestic final demand, and China's CD-CEs are mainly emitted at home. Production and supply of electric power, steam and hot water is the biggest contributor to China's PD-CEs while Construction the largest contributor to China's CD-CEs. Third, the SDA results show that China's PD-CEs and CD-CEs mainly grew due to changes in China's final demand volume. The significant restraint to the growth of China's PD-CEs and CD-CEs is the effect of changes in the domestic emission intensity. Changes in China's ties with other economies have an important impact on China's carbon emissions. Developing economies are replacing developed economies as major destinations for China's emissions export. Fourth, the growth rate of China's PD-CEs and CD-CEs significantly slowed down and the factors contributing to the changes in China's PD-CEs and PD-CEs have changed after China's economy entered the new normal.