Influencing Factors of CO2 Emissions in Chinese Power Industry: A Study from the Production and Consumption Perspectives

Abstract

China’s huge regional differences are taken into consideration to study the influencing factors and their differences in CO2 emissions of the power industry from different regions. This study aimed to improve the efficiency of CO2 emission reduction policies. From the production and consumption perspectives, this study analyzes the influencing factors of CO2 emissions and utilizes the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) to decompose CO2 emissions with consideration of the cross-regional power dispatching in the power industry. The results indicate that the trend of CO2 emissions in the eastern, central, and western China seems similar during years 2005 to 2017 no matter from which perspective. From the production perspective, power consumption is the main factor in CO2 emission increase and its affect extent may vary from different regions over a period of time. Energy efficiency inhibits CO2 emission increase in all regions. The power structure and power distribution across regions affect CO2 emissions significantly different in amount and direction from region to region. From the consumption perspective, economic activity plays a major role in CO2 emission increase and plays a similar role in the trend of CO2 emissions in three regions, but its affect extent on CO2 emissions varies in different regions. Targeted policy recommendations are provided to reduce CO2 emissions more effectively from China’s power industry.