IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/enejou/v42y2021i2p183-204.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does Global Value Chain Participation Decouple Chinese Development from CO2 Emissions? A Structural Decomposition Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Hui Wang
  • Chen Pan
  • B.W. Ang
  • Peng Zhou

Abstract

Decoupling economic activities and CO2 emissions is central to achieving the climate goals of China. The country’s participation in global value chains has profound impacts on its economy as well as CO2 emissions. Assessing the impacts is fundamental to identifying strategies to decouple China’s development from emissions. To this end, we adopt the multi-region structural decomposition analysis technique to quantify the global value chain determinants of China’s CO2 emission intensity from both the production and consumption perspectives. It is found that China’s decoupling from emissions in 2007-2012 was driven mainly by global value chains. Nonetheless the decoupling slowed down after the global financial crisis. In particular, the value chains within China played a more important role in greening Chinese economy. Despite the considerable improvement in 2007-2012, global value chains remained the primary obstacle to environmental sustainability of China. More detailed results with policy implications are presented.

Suggested Citation

  • Hui Wang & Chen Pan & B.W. Ang & Peng Zhou, 2021. "Does Global Value Chain Participation Decouple Chinese Development from CO2 Emissions? A Structural Decomposition Analysis," The Energy Journal, , vol. 42(2), pages 183-204, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:enejou:v:42:y:2021:i:2:p:183-204
    DOI: 10.5547/01956574.42.2.hwan
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5547/01956574.42.2.hwan
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5547/01956574.42.2.hwan?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zhifu Mi & Jing Meng & Dabo Guan & Yuli Shan & Malin Song & Yi-Ming Wei & Zhu Liu & Klaus Hubacek, 2017. "Chinese CO2 emission flows have reversed since the global financial crisis," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 8(1), pages 1-10, December.
    2. Paul De Boer, 2009. "Multiplicative Decomposition And Index Number Theory: An Empirical Application Of The Sato-Vartia Decomposition," Economic Systems Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(2), pages 163-174.
    3. Rutger Hoekstra & Bernhard Michel & Sangwon Suh, 2016. "The emission cost of international sourcing: using structural decomposition analysis to calculate the contribution of international sourcing to CO 2 -emission growth," Economic Systems Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(2), pages 151-167, June.
    4. Wang, H. & Zhou, P., 2018. "Multi-country comparisons of CO2 emission intensity: The production-theoretical decomposition analysis approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 310-320.
    5. Su, Bin & Ang, B.W. & Li, Yingzhu, 2019. "Structural path and decomposition analysis of aggregate embodied energy and emission intensities," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 345-360.
    6. Haiyan Zhang & Michael L. Lahr, 2014. "Can The Carbonizing Dragon Be Domesticated? Insights From A Decomposition Of Energy Consumption And Intensity In China, 1987--2007," Economic Systems Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(2), pages 119-140, June.
    7. Wang, H. & Zhou, P. & Xie, Bai-Chen & Zhang, N., 2019. "Assessing drivers of CO2 emissions in China's electricity sector: A metafrontier production-theoretical decomposition analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 275(3), pages 1096-1107.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ahmad Nawaz & Mohammad Mafizur Rahman, 2024. "Global value chains participation and environmental degradation in SAARC economies," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 26(6), pages 15595-15617, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. H. Wang & Chen Pan & P. Zhou, 2019. "Assessing the Role of Domestic Value Chains in China’s CO2 Emission Intensity: A Multi-Region Structural Decomposition Analysis," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 74(2), pages 865-890, October.
    2. Zhang, Danyang & Wang, Hui & Löschel, Andreas & Zhou, Peng, 2021. "The changing role of global value chains in CO2 emission intensity in 2000–2014," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    3. Li, Yilin & Chen, Bin & Li, Chaohui & Li, Zhi & Chen, Guoqian, 2020. "Energy perspective of Sino-US trade imbalance in global supply chains," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    4. Zhou, P. & Zhang, H. & Zhang, L.P., 2022. "The drivers of energy intensity changes in Chinese cities: A production-theoretical decomposition analysis," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 307(C).
    5. Lizhan Cao & Hui Wang, 2022. "The Slowdown in China’s Energy Consumption Growth in the “New Normal” Stage: From Both National and Regional Perspectives," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-21, April.
    6. Yun-Hsun Huang & Jung-Hua Wu & Hao-Syuan Huang, 2021. "Analyzing the Driving Forces behind CO 2 Emissions in Energy-Resource-Poor and Fossil-Fuel-Centered Economies: Case Studies from Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(17), pages 1-14, August.
    7. Liu, Xiao & Hang, Ye & Wang, Qunwei & Chiu, Ching-Ren & Zhou, Dequn, 2022. "The role of energy consumption in global carbon intensity change: A meta-frontier-based production-theoretical decomposition analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    8. Su, Bin & Ang, B.W., 2015. "Multiplicative decomposition of aggregate carbon intensity change using input–output analysis," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 13-20.
    9. Zhang, Yu & Tian, Kailan & Li, Xiaomeng & Jiang, Xuemei & Yang, Cuihong, 2022. "From globalization to regionalization? Assessing its potential environmental and economic effects," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 310(C).
    10. Wang, H. & Ang, B.W. & Su, Bin, 2017. "Assessing drivers of economy-wide energy use and emissions: IDA versus SDA," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 585-599.
    11. Kekui Chen & Jianming Fu & Yun Gong & Jian Wang & Shilin Lv & Yajie Liu & Jingyun Li, 2022. "Study on the Influencing Factors of CO 2 from the Perspective of CO 2 Mitigation Potentials," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-22, July.
    12. Wu, F. & Zhou, P. & Zhou, D.Q., 2020. "Modeling carbon emission performance under a new joint production technology with energy input," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    13. Wang, H. & Ang, B.W. & Su, Bin, 2017. "A Multi-region Structural Decomposition Analysis of Global CO2 Emission Intensity," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 163-176.
    14. Wang, Hui & Li, Rupeng & Zhang, Ning & Zhou, Peng & Wang, Qiang, 2020. "Assessing the role of technology in global manufacturing energy intensity change: A production-theoretical decomposition analysis," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    15. Jiang, Jingjing & Ye, Bin & Liu, Junguo, 2019. "Research on the peak of CO2 emissions in the developing world: Current progress and future prospect," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 235(C), pages 186-203.
    16. Huo, Tengfei & Cong, Xiaobo & Cheng, Cong & Cai, Weiguang & Zuo, Jian, 2023. "What is the driving mechanism for the carbon emissions in the building sector? An integrated DEMATEL-ISM model," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 274(C).
    17. Yan, Yunfeng & Wang, Ran & Chen, Sida & Wang, Feifan & Zhao, Zhongxiu, 2022. "Mapping carbon footprint along global value chains: A study based on firm heterogeneity in China," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 398-408.
    18. Sun, Ya-Fang & Zhang, Yue-Jun & Su, Bin, 2022. "How does global transport sector improve the emissions reduction performance? A demand-side analysis," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 311(C).
    19. Marco Antonio Marquez Mendoza, 2023. "An analysis of economic growth using input–output tables," Journal of Economic Structures, Springer;Pan-Pacific Association of Input-Output Studies (PAPAIOS), vol. 12(1), pages 1-22, December.
    20. Yan, Junna & Su, Bin, 2020. "What drive the changes in China's energy consumption and intensity during 12th Five-Year Plan period?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:enejou:v:42:y:2021:i:2:p:183-204. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.