Influence of Climate Change on Carbon Emissions during Grain Production and Its Mechanism

Abstract

Abnormal climatic changes and related disasters are increasing in prevalence, with many negative impacts on ecosystems and agricultural production. The area of land in China is vast, including diverse terrain and climate types, and a substantial area is used to grow food crops. Therefore, climate change is having a huge impact on China’s grain production. Currently, the relationship between climate change and carbon emissions during grain production and the underlying mechanism have not been fully clarified. Therefore, this study used an ordinary least squares regression (OLS) model and the system generalized method of moments (SYS-GMM) to examine the influence of climatic change and carbon emissions during grain production, and we constructed mediation effect models to explore the mechanism of influence between them by utilizing panel data in China from 2000 to 2020. In addition, we also examined the adjustment effect of green technology progress and farmland scale. The study found that China’s carbon emissions during grain production increased from 2000 to 2015 and then presented a decreasing trend after 2015. We found that the annual average temperature has a prominent positive effect on carbon emissions during grain production, while the annual average rainfall has a negative effect. Among them, temperature changes mainly lead to the increase in carbon emissions during grain production through the increase in “fertilizer use” and “multiple cropping index”, but the mechanism of rainfall changes’ impact on carbon emissions during grain production is still unclear. In addition, green technology progress and farmland scale play adjustment roles in the impact of climate change on carbon emissions during grain production, and they could significantly suppress carbon emissions. On the basis of the conclusions in this paper, we propose that strengthening climate change adaptation is an important prerequisite for reducing carbon emissions during grain production. Furthermore, China should continue to reduce fertilizer use, facilitate the application of agriculture green technology, and expand the scale of farmland to achieve agricultural carbon emission reduction.