Carbon emissions and driving forces of an island economy: A case study of Chongming Island, China

Abstract The sea level rise caused by climate change has seriously threatened the sustainable development of island areas. As the third largest island in China, Chongming has constructed ecological islands for a long time and has paid special attention to local ecological issues and sustainable development issues. In the period of 2002–2012, the production-based CO2 emissions of Chongming increased from 0.96 Mt tons to 2.05 Mt tons, with a lower growth rate than the national level. Due to the difficulties in obtaining research data, the existing research has not used the input-output method to evaluate the CO2 emissions of Chongming. This paper calculates the consumption-based CO2 emissions in Chongming between 2002 and 2012 based on an optimization method of matrix updating and an environmentally extended input-output model. Structural decomposition analysis (SDA) is also used to study the driving forces of consumption-based CO2 emissions during this period. The results show that from 2002 to 2012, the average annual growth rate of Chongming’s consumption-based CO2 emissions was 12.74%. In 2002, consumption-based emissions were mainly caused by gross capital formation, and in 2007 and 2012, consumption-based emissions were mainly caused by domestic outflow. Additionally, changes in the final demand volume and final demand structure were the main drivers of the rapid growth in Chongming’s consumption-based CO2 emissions. Our study can help to strengthen the understanding of Chongming’s CO2 emission situation and provide some policy recommendations for building an ecological island. In addition, we have established the first input-output table of Chongming Island, which provides a data basis for future analyses of other environmental issues on Chongming Island.