Decoupling and decomposition of emissions and economic growth in Guangdong: a perspective of embodied carbon flow

Decoupling the dependence on carbon emissions from achieving high-quality economic development is a paramount objective for China. However, the often-overlooked aspect is the carbon emissions generated through trade activities, which can lead to an overestimation of decoupling progress. Our study quantified and compared the decoupling status of production-based and consumption-based carbon emissions from economic growth in Guangdong from 2002 to 2017 from the perspective of inter-provincial embodied carbon flow, and further investigated its driving factors. The results reveal that consumption-based carbon emissions consistently surpass production-based emissions, although they exhibited a steady decline in recent years. As a significant contributor to embodied carbon emissions, Guangdong outsources a considerable portion of its emissions to less developed regions such as Liaoning and Guangxi by importing raw or intermediate products with lower value-added raw, while it exports service products to provinces like Beijing and Zhejiang. Decoupling analysis indicated that Guangdong is progressively moving towards an optimal state of "double decoupling", where both production and consumption-based carbon emissions are decreasing. This represents a departure from the previous scenario of "fake decoupling", characterized by a reduction in production-based carbon emissions but persistently high consumption-based emissions. Additionally, our structural decomposition analysis highlights the potential for reducing carbon emissions and enhancing decoupling by increasing the utilization of clean energy and optimizing the trade input structure. These findings underscore the importance of accounting for embodied carbon emissions in decoupling studies and offer valuable insights for achieving high-quality development.