Factors affecting regional per-capita carbon emissions in China based on an LMDI factor decomposition model

PLoS One. 2013 Dec 6;8(12):e80888. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0080888. eCollection 2013.

Abstract

China is considered to be the main carbon producer in the world. The per-capita carbon emissions indicator is an important measure of the regional carbon emissions situation. This study used the LMDI factor decomposition model-panel co-integration test two-step method to analyze the factors that affect per-capita carbon emissions. The main results are as follows. (1) During 1997, Eastern China, Central China, and Western China ranked first, second, and third in the per-capita carbon emissions, while in 2009 the pecking order changed to Eastern China, Western China, and Central China. (2) According to the LMDI decomposition results, the key driver boosting the per-capita carbon emissions in the three economic regions of China between 1997 and 2009 was economic development, and the energy efficiency was much greater than the energy structure after considering their effect on restraining increased per-capita carbon emissions. (3) Based on the decomposition, the factors that affected per-capita carbon emissions in the panel co-integration test showed that Central China had the best energy structure elasticity in its regional per-capita carbon emissions. Thus, Central China was ranked first for energy efficiency elasticity, while Western China was ranked first for economic development elasticity.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Carbon Footprint / economics*
  • Carbon Footprint / statistics & numerical data*
  • China
  • Economic Development / statistics & numerical data*
  • Energy-Generating Resources / statistics & numerical data*
  • Geography
  • Models, Theoretical*

Grants and funding

This work is supported by National Natural Science Foundation in China (41101569 and 71273258), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation funded project (2011M500965), Jiangsu Funds of Social Science (11EYC023), Doctoral Discipline New Teachers Fund (20110095120002), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2013W01), the Talent Introduction Funds of China University of Mining and Technology (CUMT), the Sail Plan Funds for Young Teachers of CUMT, and the High Level Thesis Foundation of the College of Management, CUMT. The Major Program of the National Social Science Foundation in China (12&ZD062). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.