Sustainability, Vol. 11, Pages 7008: Analysis of Energy-Related Carbon Emissions in Inner Mongolia, China (Sustainability)

Inner Mongolia has shown both rapid economic growth and a large renewable energy base, this has come about by the introduction of the “Western Development” strategy and renewable energy policy of the Chinese Government. However, this has led to a contradictory situation where both high carbon emission and reduction exist together. The average economic growth of Inner Mongolia reached 15.76% between 2006 and 2016, which caused huge CO2 emissions. However, promotion of the renewable energy policy (since 2005) resulted in an energy self-sufficiency rate that reached 270.80% by 2016. In this study of the Inner Mongolia carbon emission situation, the logarithmic mean divisia index (LMDI) model was used to analyze the factors affecting carbon emission fluctuations from 2005 to 2016. The decoupling elasticity index was then used to measure the decoupling effect of the economic growth and carbon emissions. The results of this research show that: firstly, CO2 emissions increased rapidly from 651.03 million tons in 2006 to 1723.24 million tons in 2013. Despite a slight decline in CO2 emissions, a level above 1600 million tons was maintained between 2014 and 2016. Secondly, the industry sector was the main source of CO2 emissions in Inner Mongolia, and coal-based fuel played a determining role. Thirdly, in this study, two important contributions were made, including the discovery of two new drivers: labor and emission intensity factors. Further, findings about the effect of the six industrial sectors, economic structure, energy density, and emission intensity factors were also decomposed. It was found that during research period, the population factor, labor factor, and labor productivity factor all had a positive influence on CO2 emissions, whereas the economic structure factor and emission intensity factor had different impacts on the CO2 emissions depending on the particular industrial sector. Furthermore, the energy intensity of six industrial sectors contributed to the decrease in aggregate CO2 emissions. Finally, in this study, it was also found that economic growth and CO2 growth in Inner Mongolia presented a weak decoupling state. Policy recommendations based on these results have been presented.