Exploring the Effects of Industrial Structure, Technology, and Energy Efficiency on China’s Carbon Intensity and Their Contributions to Carbon Intensity Target

• Main Authors: Feng Wang, Min Wu, Jiachen Hong
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-09-01
• Series: Sustainability
• Subjects: elasticity; national carbon intensity; industrial development; intermediate input coefficients; industrial structure
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/19/8016

To achieve the national carbon intensity (NCI) target, China should adopt effective mitigation measures. This paper aims to examine the effects of key mitigation measures on NCI. Using the input-output table in 2017, this paper establishes the elasticity model of NCI to investigate the effects of industrial development, intermediate input coefficients, energy efficiency, and residential energy saving on NCI, and further evaluates the contributions of key measures on achieving NCI target. The results are shown as follows. First, the development of seven sectors will promote the increase of NCI while that of 21 sectors will reduce NCI. Second, NCI will decrease significantly with the descending of intermediate input coefficients of sectors, especially electricity production and supply. Third, improving energy efficiency and residential energy saving degree could reduce NCI, but the latter has limited contribution. Fourth, the development of all sectors will reduce NCI by 10.11% in 2017–2022 if sectors could continue the historical development trends. Fifth, assuming that sectors with rising intermediate input coefficients would keep their coefficients unchanged in the predicting period and sectors with descending coefficients would continue the historical descending trend, the improvement of technology and management of all sectors will reduce NCI by 14.02% in 2017–2022.