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The carbon footprints of secondary industry in China: an input–output subsystem analysis

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Abstract

As the largest CO2 emitter in the world, China is facing great pressure in emission reduction. The secondary industry is the dominated contributor to the total emissions in China, accounting for about 88.34% in 2012. Therefore, in this paper, an input–output subsystem model is applied to explore the carbon footprints of secondary industry in China. The results show that: (1) from the perspective of direct emissions generated by secondary industry, the production and supply of electricity, steam and water, as well as the manufacture and processing of metals are identified as the sectors with highest carbon emissions. From the perspective of indirect emissions, the final demand of construction and manufacture of mechanical equipment cause the highest CO2 emissions compared with that of other sectors. (2) Of the indirect carbon emissions caused by the final demand of secondary industry, the greatest proportion is generated by the consumption of the products of secondary industry itself. Apart from the products of its own sectors, the construction and the manufacture of mechanical equipment are the two largest, accounting for 44 and 34%, respectively. (3) Secondary industry sectors are also the main source of indirect emissions of non-secondary industry sectors, accounting for about 68.28% of the latter. The findings provide a reference for the promotion of emission reduction of secondary industry in China.

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Notes

  1. The indirect emissions mean the part that is caused by final demand of goods in secondary or non-secondary industry.

  2. The vector of final demand here does not include the import and error section.

  3. In order to get accurate and clear results, we merge these sectors into 19 sectors including 15 secondary sectors, 1 primary sector and 3 tertiary sectors.

  4. Carbon emissions in this paper only include CO2 emissions from production activities, apart from the direct carbon emissions from households.

  5. Pull effect: Here refers to the carbon emissions effects caused by the sector activities.

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Acknowledgement

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant (No. 71503249), Beijing Excellent Talent Program (No. 2015000020124G122), the Open Research Project of State Key Laboratory of Coal Resources and Safe Mining (China University of Mining and Technology) (No. SKLCRSM16KFC05). We thank Mr. Mian Zhang and Mr. Fengyu Li for their assistance of language polishing. We also appreciate the editor and two anonymous referees for their helpful suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Coal Resources and Safe Mining (China University of Mining and Technology), 100083, Beijing, China

    Jing-Li Fan

  2. School of Resources and Safety Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology (Beijing), 100083, Beijing, China

    Jing-Li Fan, Jian-Da Wang & Ling-Si Kong

  3. The Administrative Centre for China’s Agenda 21, Ministry of Science and Technology, 100038, Beijing, China

    Xian Zhang

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  1. Jing-Li Fan
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Correspondence to Xian Zhang.

Appendix

Appendix

See Table 5.

Table 5 Sector classifications and codes
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Fan, JL., Wang, JD., Kong, LS. et al. The carbon footprints of secondary industry in China: an input–output subsystem analysis. Nat Hazards 91, 635–657 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-017-3147-1

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