Evolution and driving factors of CO2 emissions structure in China's heating and power industries: A supply-side and demand-side dual perspectives

Abstract Excessive CO2 emissions from energy combustion are the main cause of the global greenhouse effect, while the energy consumption in China's heating and power industries account for more than a half of national energy consumption. Based on this, to more accurately implement carbon emission reduction in heating and power industries, we studied the evolution and driving factors of the carbon emission structure in these industries between 2007 and 2015 from supply-side and demand-side dual perspectives. The results indicated that: (1) From the view of supply-side, the change of energy consumption structure led to the decline driving force of high-carbon energy (washed coal, crude oil, diesel oil and raw coal) and the rising driving role of low-carbon energy (coke oven gas, other gas and natural gas) for CO2 emissions growth. Moreover, seen from the entire sample interval, 2007–2010 and 2010–2012 were the best period and the worst period for energy consumption optimization in China's heating and power industries, respectively. (2) From the view of demand-side, the expansion of industrial scale was the responsibility of the carbon emissions growth in China's heating and power industries, and the driving force of the second industry on carbon emissions growth was stronger than that of tertiary industry and primary industry. (3) However, since the direct consumption coefficient of heating and power energies in the tertiary industry and primary industry was lower than that of the secondary industry, the optimization of industrial structure was conducive to slowing the growth of CO2 emissions in the China's heating and power industries on the demand-side. At last, this paper provides a theoretical analysis for the carbon emission structure of the heating and power industries, and a practical guidance for the industries to carry out more accurate and efficient emission reduction from both sides of supply and demand subsequently.