Focus on the provincial inequalities in energy consumption and CO2 emissions of Iran's agriculture sector

Analyzing and understanding the driving factors behind CO2 emissions is noticeable due to increasing the awareness about CO2 emissions, and it is a highlight in Iran's agriculture sector because of the increasing amount of CO2 emissions, inefficient government policies, and rising fossil energy consumption in last decade. By considering the regional differences to investigate this aim, the Theil index and Kaya factor used to analysis the provincial inequality in CO2 emissions, energy consumption, and identify the driving factor. Using the Theil approach helps us to find out the inequality trend in CO2 emissions and energy consumption and also inequality across different provinces. In that way, the Kaya identity applied to analyze the factor behind the inequality in CO2 emissions. The empirical result shows some points, primary, according to the criteria and weights in the grouping methodologies, the GDP, due to the lower level of contribution in within-group inequality, is better than the population. Further, by assessing the inequality in the consumption of different forms of energy and CO2 emissions across the provinces, most of the inequality was related to within-group, and the Theil trends are decreasing in gas and electricity; this trend is unclear and fluctuated in petroleum products and increase in CO2 emissions. Secondly, the first and second phases of subsidizing targeting have reduced the consumption and inequality of petroleum products and CO2 emissions in the short term. Still, the inequality in CO2 emissions continues to increase recently. Thirdly, the national inequality in CO2 emission mainly attributed to energy factors across provinces, and an increase in the energy inequalities helps to explain the CO2 inequality increase. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.