Evaluating the impacts of technological progress on agricultural energy consumption and carbon emissions based on multi-scenario analysis

Abstract

Analyzing the impacts of technological progress on agricultural energy consumption and carbon emissions is of great significance for the development of low-carbon agriculture. Most of the existing studies focus on the agricultural sector level and lack of assessment of the impacts of technological progress on agricultural energy use and carbon emissions from the perspective of crops. In this study, we evaluated the impacts of technological progress on the energy consumption and carbon emissions of main crops in China under energy intensity constraints using a price endogenous partial equilibrium model with scenario analysis. We found that China's agriculture will have the highest yield and social welfare in 2025 under the production technological progress scenario, which will be 695.44 million t and 287.91 million yuan. Energy consumption for production will be the least under the energy technology progress scenario, which will be reduced by 9.02 million t ce or 16.01% compared to the baseline scenario. Under energy intensity constraints, synergy progress in production and energy technology will be the most effective way to reduce carbon emissions in the agricultural sector. Compared to the baseline, China's agricultural sector will reduce carbon emissions by 22.18 million t c in 2025 under the synergy scenario, a decrease of 16.18%. Therefore, we suggested that China's agricultural sector should pay more attention to the synergetic development of agricultural energy and production technology to further reduce carbon emissions and promote the development of green agriculture.

Keywords: Agricultural carbon emissions; Agricultural energy consumption; Energy intensity constraint; Scenario analysis; Technological progress.