Analysis of Influencing Factors of Carbon Emissions in China’s Logistics Industry: A GDIM-Based Indicator Decomposition

Abstract

Due to increased global carbon dioxide emissions, the greenhouse effect is being aggravated, which has attracted wide attention. China is committed to promoting the low-carbon development of all industries. This paper analyzed the influencing factors of carbon emissions in the Chinese logistics industry, so as to identify the key factors that influence carbon emissions. Based on the carbon emission data of China’s logistics industry in 2000–2019, this paper applied the carbon emission coefficients issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. For the first time, the Generalized Divisia Index Method was used to analyze the degree of influence of the factors on carbon emissions. This method considered more variables and their relationships. The results showed that (1) the carbon emissions of the logistics industry were increased by 3.22 times from 2000 to 2018, and showed negative growth for the first time in 2019; (2) the added value of the logistics industry is the most important factor in increasing carbon emissions (with a contribution ratio of 65.45%), energy consumption and practical population size are the main factors in carbon emissions. The promotion of this industry is subjected to decreased per capita carbon emissions, which have a large impact on total carbon emissions; (3) the intensity of carbon output is the most important factor in the reduction of carbon emissions (with a contribution ratio of −29.1%), where the energy carbon intensity and per capita added value are the main influencing factors with regard to the reduction of carbon emissions, while energy intensity has a negative inhibitory effect on carbon emissions, and (4) the influencing factors have negative effects on the cumulative inhibition of carbon emissions in the logistics industry, to an extent that is far less than the integral promotion of carbon emissions. Finally, according to the research conclusions of this paper, it is feasible to make recommendations for the carbon reduction of the logistics industry.

County carbon emissions in the Yangtze River Delta region: Spatial layout, dynamic evolution and spatial spillover effects

“…Theoretical studies are the basis of practical studies, and some scholars focus on the strong industry characteristics of carbon emissions, so they have gradually launched studies on carbon emissions from transportation (Xie et al, 2017;Zhu et al, 2020;Dujmovic et al, 2022), agriculture (Ali et al, 2022;Huang and Gao, 2022), aviation (Han et al, 2022), construction (Du et al, 2021;Du et al, 2022), logistics (Zhang Y. et al, 2021), and tourism. Further, related scholars have incorporated the topic of carbon reduction into the analysis of specific regional issues in order to improve the practical application value, and the carbon emission problems of some special regions have been widely studied, such as river basins (Sun et al, 2021;Wang et al, 2021), large cities (Qian et al, 2022), industrial cities (Zhang C. et al, 2021), urban agglomerations (Cui et al, 2020), metropolitan areas (Benjamin and Marilyn, 2009;Thomas, 2013), rural areas (Zhang et al, 2014), ports (Gian et al, 2020), etc.…”

The road to green development: How can carbon emission trading pilot policy contribute to carbon peak attainment and neutrality? Evidence from China

“… Wang et al (2019) analyze that the share of coal consumption promotes carbon emission scale and carbon emission intensity, and research and development (R&D) intensity and energy efficiency inhibit factors. Zhang et al (2021) suggest that the value-added of the logistics industry contributes 65.45% to carbon emissions. China and India are the world’s largest coal consumers and the most populous countries.…”

Impact of the Digital Economy on the Carbon Emissions of China’s Logistics Industry

“…Many scholars have used the IPCC carbon emission coefficient method, input-output method, data envelopment analysis method, factor decomposition method, and econometric analysis method to study the carbon emissions of the logistics industry and its influencing factors. Zhang et al (2021) used the GDIM decomposition method [11], and Deng et al (2020) used the PCA-DEA-Tobit method to analyze the carbon emissions of the logistics industry and its influencing factors [12].…”