Contrastive analyses of the influence factors of interprovincial carbon emission induced by industry energy in China

As a major contributor of carbon emission in the world, China should focus on the balance between the universality of development and regional heterogeneity of carbon discharge during the transformation toward low-carbon economy. To reveal the differences among interprovincial industry energy’s carbon emissions, some relevant data of carbon emissions in 29 provinces and municipalities during the period of 1996–2012 are selected in this study. Based on the Logarithmic Mean Divisia index decomposition model and hierarchical clustering method, the 29 provinces were clustered in turn by four time intervals according to some indicators, including economic intensity, energy intensity, industry structure, energy structure, demographic effect, and carbon density influence. Research results show that during 1996–2000, economic intensity has a strong positive driving effect on carbon emissions in such eastern provinces as Shanghai, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu, and other seven inland provinces, such as Hunan and Hubei. Demographic effects have strong pulling effects on carbon emissions in municipalities and eastern coastal provinces, and they also exert strong negative effects on carbon emissions in Anhui, Guangxi, Guizhou, and Sichuan in the first three time intervals. During the four periods, highly energy-efficient provinces are Jiangsu, Guangdong, Sichuan, Shandong, Hubei, etc., whose carbon emissions are significantly inhibited by their energy intensity, whereas inefficient provinces are concentrated in western regions, like Guangxi, Hainan, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia, Xinjiang, etc.