Analysis of China's regional thermal electricity generation and CO2 emissions: Decomposition based on the generalized Divisia index

Abstract

Even though Chinese government has been promoting the development of renewable energy, coal-fired thermal electricity generation still accounts for nearly 70% of the total electricity generation, proving to be the largest carbon dioxide (CO₂) emitter in China. Uncovering the driving forces of CO₂ emissions, thus, is of great significance to provide appropriate mitigation policies for the sustainable development of China's thermal electricity generation. In this regard, this study aims to fill a research gap by applying Index Decomposition Analysis (IDA) approach via the Generalized Divisia Index Model (GDIM) to examine the driving factors behind the CO₂ emission changes in China's thermal electricity generation during 2000-2016. The decomposition results indicate that the factors contributing to the growth in CO₂ emission can be ranked as follows: economic activity (52.0%), electricity demand (45.8%) and energy use (36.2%), whereas factors suppressing the growth in the mission are carbon intensity change (-17.7%), technology (-11.3%), energy mix (-2.4%), energy efficiency (-1.7%) and electricity efficiency (-0.9%). Noteworthy, the promoting effect of the economic activity varied little with time, whereas that of electricity demand and energy use exhibited a downward trend in general. Besides, though the progress in technology contributed a lot to the decrease of CO₂ emission, its decreasing effects tended to diminish since 2013. Northeast and East regions appeared as those contributing to the mitigation of the CO₂ emissions from China's thermal electricity generation, whereas the North and Northwest regions exerted a lag to the abatement of CO₂ emission.

Keywords: Carbon dioxide emissions; Generalized Divisia Index Model; Index Decomposition Analysis; Thermal electricity generation.