Factor Decomposition And Decoupling Analysis On CO₂ Emissions:Evidence From China's Circulation Sector

How to control and relieve global warming effectively has been highly concerned by national governments. As the largest developing country with rapid economic growth, China not only faces the shortage of environmental carrying capacity, but also difficult negotiations for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in a new international framework. Under the dual pressures from home and abroad, reducing carbon energy consumption, decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, and achieving a low-carbon economy development are inevitable choices for Chinese future economic development,and also a necessary requirement for all industries achieving sustainable development.The circulation industry is the base and guidance of the national economy, and also an important carrier of energy consumption and CO2 emissions. Quantitative analyzing the energy consumption of the circulation industry, exploring the main factors that affect changes in CO2 emissions and analyzing the effects of decoupling have important theoretical and practical significance in achieving energy reduction targets,building a resource-saving and environment-friendly society.Based on the method of IPCC list, this paper estimates the CO2 emissions of Chinese circulation industry during the period of 2000-2012. Using the method of LMDI, this paper analyzes the factors that influence the changes of CO2 emissions in the circulation industry. This paper constructs a circulation's decoupling index model based on the DPSIR framework to measure the decoupling effect of the CO2 emissions in the circulation industry. In order to explore whether the decoupling result of the data from the circulation subclass is consistent with the decoupling result of the data from the overall circulation industry,this paper finally measure the decoupling effect of CO2 emissions of the circulation subclass(logistics,wholesale, retail, accommodation and catering industry).The results indicated that: during the period of 2000-2012, the CO2 emissions of Chinese circulation industry increased significantly, and the cumulative total of CO2 emissions was 6.9248237 billion tons; the industrial scale effect mainly led to the increment on CO2 emissions,which amounted to 674.3572 million tons. The energy intensity effect mainly led to the reduction of CO2 emissions,which amounted to123.5867 million tons.The energy structure and the emission factors have no significant effect on the changes of CO2 emissions, which increased the CO2 emissions by5.1989 million tons and reduced the CO2 emissions by 25.9094 million tons. Thedecoupling status of CO2 emissions in the circulation industry shows phasic variation,going through the process of "weak decoupling- negative decoupling- weak decoupling- negative decoupling". During the period, the decoupling index value was the type of " ", falling first and then rising and finally falling again. Energy intensity is the key factor that determines the decoupling status of CO2 emissions, however, as the reduction of energy intensity become smaller and smaller, it will need to adjust the energy structure and reduce the effect of the emission factor to realize the decoupling of CO2 emissions in the circulation industry. In the analysis of the decoupling effect,the decoupling result of the data from the circulation subclass is consistent with that of the data from the overall circulation industry.