Decomposition and Decoupling of Driving Factors on Marginal Abatement Cost Change of Carbon Emissions:An Empirical Study Based on China's Industrial Sector
Inevitably,climate change poses a series of economic and societal risks,seriously threatening the stability of China's socio-economic system.To mitigate and avoid the risks of climate change,China has set strategic goals for"carbon peaking by 2030"and"carbon neutrality by 2060".However,reducing carbon emissions will inevitably come with certain economic costs,and the economic cost of emission reduction varies significantly under different economic conditions and environmental conditions.The choice of emission reduction measures has a decisive impact on the differences in emission reduction costs.In order to make appropriate choices for emission reduction measures,it is effective to identify the determining factors of the change in marginal abatement costs through the decomposing and decoupling analysis.In this paper,we focus on 19 key industrial sectors in China's secondary industry.The marginal abatement costs of 19 major industrial sectors in 30 provinces in China-excluding Tibet,Hong Kong,Macau,and Taiwan-are subjected to a decomposition of driving factors and a decoupling analysis.First,the study employs the Stochastic Frontier Analysis(SFA)method to estimate the marginal abatement costs for each industry.Building on this,the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index(LMDI)method is used to attribute the changes in marginal abatement costs to energy saving effects and end-of-pipe controlling effects.Second,the Tapio model is applied to discuss whether the reduction in carbon-intensive energy consumption,including coal,oil,and natural gas,leads to changes in marginal abatement costs.The research findings are as follows:(1)Most sectors exhibit significant fluctuations in marginal abatement costs,but overall,there is an upward trend,especially in sectors such as production and supply of electric power,steam and hot water,textile industry,metal products,food production,and smelting and pressing of nonferrous metals.(2)After 2010,with the increasing promotion of energy-saving and emission reduction efforts,a further reduction in energy consumption leads to a substantial increase in abatement costs.However,compared to reducing energy consumption,achieving emission reduction by lowering the carbon emissions per unit of energy consumption is a more economically viable approach.(3)Among the three carbon-intensive energy sources(coal,oil,and natural gas),saving coal is less likely to result in an increase in marginal abatement costs.On the contrary,saving natural gas is a noteworthy issue.Although substituting natural gas for coal and oil in the short term is effective for emission reduction,in the long run,this approach may not be conducive to achieving the"dual carbon"goals,especially carbon neutrality goal.Therefore,we propose:(1)Consideration of marginal abatement costs when allocating emission reduction targets can effectively reduce the economic losses that may arise from the implementation of the"dual carbon"goals;it might even lead to a win-win situation of"carbon reduction"and"economic growth"in some industries.(2)Most industries achieving emission reduction based on end-of-pipe controlling effects will not continuously drive an increase in marginal abatement costs;through the deployment of Carbon Capture and Storage(CCS)and similar strategies,even though there may be significant initial marginal abatement costs,they are expected to decrease significantly after a certain accumulation.(3)It is necessary for China to strengthen long-term investment in research and development of new energy production and application technologies;the adoption of"zero-carbon"energy to replace the consumption of coal,oil,and natural gas is crucial to reducing natural gas consumption without a substantial increase in abatement costs.Compared to previous research,we discuss how Chinese industrial enterprises can achieve carbon reduction without a significant increase in marginal abatement costs in the coming years;moreover,we apply the relatively mature LMDI model and the Tapio decoupling model to the decomposition and decoupling of marginal abatement costs,expanding the application scope of the models and providing reference for similar studies.
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