Drivers of China's carbon dioxide emissions: Based on the combination model of structural decomposition analysis and input-output subsystem method

To study the key drivers of China's carbon dioxide emissions, this study combines the structural decomposition analysis method and the input-output subsystem analysis method to construct a decomposition model of the factors influencing the amount of change of the carbon dioxide emissions in China. From the perspective of final demand, this decomposition model (own internal component, feed-back component, spillover component, scale component) is used to analyze the amount of change of China's carbon dioxide emissions in the two periods of 2012–2017 and 2017–2018. Four scenarios are set up to predict the carbon dioxide emissions of China before 2035. The results show that in 2012, 2017 and 2018, the carbon dioxide emissions generated by final demand were respectively 9,018,810, 8,715,226, and 8,803,201 kt, of which the spillover component accounted for the largest share, namely 85.5%, 85.6% and 84.7% respectively. This indicates that the increase of carbon dioxide emissions in China is due to intersectoral pulling effects, and the activities of the Construction sector have had pulling effects on the carbon dioxide emissions of other sectors to a greater extent. The energy intensity effect is the significant influencing factor that inhibits carbon dioxide emissions and economic development is the main driver of the increase in carbon dioxide emissions; this implies that changing the current energy structure is necessary to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The technical progress scenario (QN) and the energy structure optimization scenario (GN) are predicted to achieve the carbon peak in 2025 and 2030, respectively.