Driving factors and decoupling analysis of carbon emissions from energy consumption in high energy-consuming regions: a case study of Liaoning province

Abstract

To effectively address climate change, it is necessary to quantify the carbon emissions in high energy-consuming regions, analyze driving factors, and explore effective pathways for achieving green development. Therefore, this paper takes Liaoning Province as research area, using extended Kaya identity and LMDI method to analyze the driving factors of carbon emissions from energy consumption in five major industries and the residential consumption sector from 2011 to 2020 in Liaoning Province. Furthermore, this paper uses the Tapio model to explore the decoupling relationship between carbon emissions and economic development. The results show that: 1) From 2011 to 2020, total carbon emissions from energy consumption in five major industries showed a trend of initially declining and then rising, while carbon emissions from the residential consumption sector exhibited an upward trend. 2) For carbon emissions from the industrial sector, economic output and industrial structure are the primary factors that promote and inhibit carbon emissions respectively. The inhibitory effects of energy structure and energy intensity are not significant. Population scale has a certain promoting effect on carbon emissions. For residential energy consumption carbon emissions, Household consumption expenditure, residential energy structure, and residential population scale are driving factors that promote the growth of carbon emissions, while residential energy intensity restrains the growth of carbon emissions. 3) From 2011 to 2018, carbon emissions from the industrial sector have been decoupled from economic output, and the decoupling state is dominated by weak decoupling. However, carbon emissions are once again correlated with economic development in 2019–2020. Carbon emissions from residential energy consumption have not yet decoupled from consumption expenditure, and its decoupling state is unstable and has no obvious change rule.