Measuring China’s carbon emissions based on final consumption

• Published in: Energy procedia Vol. 152; pp. 853 - 862
• Main Authors: Cao, Qingren, Kang, Wei, Sajid, M. Jawad, Cao, Ming
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.01.2018
• Subjects: capital formation; carbon consumption; carbon emission; consumption-based carbon emissions; final consumption; input output table; carbon consumption; final consumption; carbon emission; input output table; consumption-based carbon emissions; capital formation
• ISSN: 1876-6102; 1876-6102
• DOI: 10.1016/j.egypro.2018.09.190

Capital formation has contributed the most towards Chinas’ carbon emissions, but capital assets are ultimately used for production. This paper by using input-output model embeds carbon emissions from capital formation to rest of final demand categories and compares results with other two common methods. Our approach has led to embedding of more carbon emissions and increased intensity. The analysis is mainly based on China’s 2012 input-output data and China Statistical Yearbook data. Under new approach, annual carbon consumption of rural households, urban households, government and foreign consumption significantly increased, urban households per capita annual carbon consumption is about 3.26 times of the rural households. Government’s 94% carbon consumption is from other non-material production sector. China’s total annual carbon export volume increased by48% under new approach. Some study limitations are also discussed in this paper. Our work is of certain reference value for understanding carbon emissions from the perspective of final consumption.