Exploring the driving forces of CO2 emission changes in Chinese cities: A production-theoretical decomposition analysis

• Published in: Frontiers in environmental science Vol. 10
• Main Authors: Cao, Ruili, Zhao, Zhibo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A 20.10.2022
• Subjects: city; classification; driving effect; production-theoretical decomposition analysis; urban CO2 emissions
• ISSN: 2296-665X; 2296-665X
• DOI: 10.3389/fenvs.2022.1042856

Analyzing the forces driving CO 2 emissions in cities could provide valuable information for carbon reduction policies in China. This study uses an improved production-theoretical decomposition analysis to evaluate the CO 2 emissions of 282 cities in China during 2003–2017. The empirical results show that the scale, energy intensity, and desirable output productivity effects contributed to about 15.03%, 3.64%, and 2.3% growths in CO 2 emissions on average, respectively, while the potential CO 2 emission and undesirable output productivity effects were responsible for 5.81% and 5.72% reductions in CO 2 emissions. By classifying the sample cities and analyzing them further, it was found that the potential CO 2 emission effect has a stronger inhibitory impact in resource-based cities. However, the promoting effects of the scale effect is more obvious in non-resource-based cities. From a spatial distribution perspective, the potential CO 2 emission effect has a more obvious inhibitory role, and the energy intensity effect is a strong measure for controlling the growth of CO 2 emissions in the eastern region. However, the contribution of the scale effect to CO 2 emissions is more pronounced in the western region. In addition, we found that the desirable output productivity effects had a suppressive effect in the eastern region and facilitating effects in the central and western regions. The undesirable output productivity effect had a suppressive effect on the growth of CO 2 emissions in all three regions, but the suppressive effects were more pronounced in the eastern region.