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Decomposition of China’s CO2 emissions from agriculture utilizing an improved Kaya identity

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Abstract

In recent decades, China’s agriculture has been experiencing flourishing growth accompanied by rising pesticide consumption, fertilizer consumption, energy consumption, etc. and increasing CO2 emissions. Analyzing the driving forces of agricultural CO2 emissions is key requirements for low-carbon agricultural policy formulation and decomposition analysis is widely used for this purpose. This study estimates the agricultural CO2 emissions in China from 1994 to 2011 and applies the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) as the decomposition technique. Change in agricultural CO2 emissions is decomposed from 1994 to 2011 and includes a measure of the effect of agricultural subsidy. Results illustrate that economic development acts to increase CO2 emissions significantly. Agricultural subsidy acts to reduce CO2 emissions effectively and has increased in recent years. Policy is needed to significantly optimize agricultural subsidy structure and change agricultural development pathway, if China’s low-carbon agriculture target is to be achieved. This requires not only decreasing pesticide consumption, fertilizer consumption, energy consumption, etc. but also transformation of China’s agricultural development path for optimal outcomes.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the Soft science research base of Hebei province.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economic Management, North China Electric Power University, No. 689 Huadian Road, Baoding, 071003, China

    Wei Li & Qingxiang Ou

  2. School of Economics and Business Administration, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Yulu Chen

Authors
  1. Wei Li
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  2. Qingxiang Ou
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  3. Yulu Chen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Qingxiang Ou.

Additional information

Responsible editor: Gerhard Lammel

Appendix

Appendix

Table 3 Annual time series of six carbon sources in China’s agriculture from 1994 to 2011
Full size table
Table 4 Annual time-series decomposition results from 1994 to 2011. Unit: million tons
Full size table

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Li, W., Ou, Q. & Chen, Y. Decomposition of China’s CO2 emissions from agriculture utilizing an improved Kaya identity. Environ Sci Pollut Res 21, 13000–13006 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-014-3250-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-014-3250-8

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