Structural path and decomposition analysis of sectoral carbon emission changes in China

With the “carbon neutrality” target proposal, China is facing severe pressure on carbon reduction. Industrial economic activities form an essential emission source of carbon dioxide. Therefore, it is necessary to promote industrial sectors’ coordinated emission reduction work. This paper uses non-competitive input-output model and structural path decomposition method to analyze the carbon emission changes from three levels of total, production layer and industrial chains, identifying the main paths and driving factors of carbon emission changes in China from 2017 to 2018. The results show that: (1) The first layer presents obvious low-carbon characteristics as a direct emission level, but the change in its carbon emissions accounted for 41.8%. (2) The increased emission of industrial chains is mainly caused by consumer spending and fixed capital formation, and emission reduction is mainly triggered by consumer spending. (3) Demand scale is an essential driving factor of carbon emission increase. The contribution rate of demand structure to emission increase and reduction industry chains is 55.1% and −16.5%, respectively, which is the biggest reason for the difference between them. Finally, targeted policy recommendations are put forward from the perspective of the emission transmission path and driving factors in the industrial chain.