Analysis of the interprovincial embodied carbon flow network of China's exports

PLoS One. 2022 Oct 11;17(10):e0275286. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0275286. eCollection 2022.

Abstract

We calculate the embodied carbon emissions of China's through the multiregional input-output (MRIO) method, then we construct the interprovincial embodied carbon flow networks of China's exports based on the mean threshold, and the application of complex network analysis to conduct a detailed examination of the overall characteristics, key nodes and edges, and community structure of China's interprovincial embodied carbon flow network. We extended the embodied carbon flow network analysis at the provincial level. The results demonstrated the following: (1) The interprovincial embodied carbon flow network of China's exports has small-world and scale-free characteristics. The node degree probability distribution curves for the networks obviously conformed to a decreasing power law distribution, indicating that a few industrial sectors carry a large amount of embodied carbon and suggesting that reducing the embodied carbon of China's exports could yield twice the results with half the effort as long as attention is paid to a few sectors. (2) The key nodes and edges in the networks show that industrial sectors and production chains such as the power and heat production and supply industry, the petroleum processing, coking, and nuclear fuel processing industry, and the metal smelting and calendering industry play the role of key "bridges" in the entire network, among which Guangdong, Hebei, Jiangsu, Inner Mongolia, and Shanxi are important node provinces and the main flow paths for the generation of embodied carbon in national exports. These industrial sectors and production chains should bolster their policies to encourage the innovation of carbon emission reduction technologies and decrease carbon emissions, so as to reduce the embodied carbon of national exports on a large scale. (3) The number of communities firstly increased then decreased from 2007 to 2017, while the aggregation coefficient of the node and correlation density within first community displayed firstly downward then upward trends, reflecting firstly decentralization then centralization of the interprovincial embodied carbon flow.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Carbon Dioxide / analysis
  • Carbon* / analysis
  • China
  • Economic Development
  • Industry
  • Petroleum* / analysis

Substances

  • Petroleum
  • Carbon Dioxide
  • Carbon

Associated data

  • figshare/10.6084/m9.figshare.21152680

Grants and funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 42171177 and 41771135) awarded to Zhipeng Tang, the website is https://www.nsfc.gov.cn/. The Foundation for Distinguished Young Talents in Higher Education of Guangdong, China (No. 2020WQNCX016) awarded to Jialing Zou, the website of this funder is http://edu.gd.gov.cn/. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.