Spatial-temporal characteristics and decoupling effects of China's transportation CO2 emissions

Abstract

Both the realization of the "double carbon" goal and the low-carbon economy development requires a focus on transportation CO₂ emissions. Calculating Chinese transportation CO₂ emissions and exploring its principles are essential for achieving high-quality development of the transportation industry. Firstly, we use a "top-down" method to assess carbon emissions from transportation operations from 2003 to 2019. Secondly, the study decomposes the influencing factors of transportation CO₂ emissions in China using the log-average weight decomposition method. Thirdly, the Tapio decoupling model is applied to study the decoupling effect of transportation CO₂ emissions in each province of China. The findings suggest that China's transport carbon emissions are growing at an annual rate of roughly 16%. All GDP per capita, transportation energy intensity, and population size increase the growth of transportation CO₂ emissions. Contrastly, energy use per unit of turnover and transportation intensity decrease the growth of transportation CO₂ emissions. There is much variation in China's carbon emission decoupling index from year to year. Policy recommendations are proposed in response to the study of the above findings and the differences in carbon reduction potential among provinces.

Keywords: Decoupling effects; Driving factors; Spatial–temporal characteristics; Transportation CO2 emissions.