Evolution and drivers of production-based carbon emissions in China and India: Differences and similarities

Added global carbon emissions have mainly come from China and India since 2012, which indicates importance of two countries in curbing global CO2 emissions. Thus, their respective mitigation lessons have more realistic significance in developing more effective mitigation strategy. This study compared the dynamic evolution of their CO2 emissions and driving factors behind changes, in order to find similarities and differences of two countries, and provide available policy implications to further reduce carbon emissions. Firstly, both China's and India's carbon emissions have been increasing during 2000-14: 3.4-9.9 Gt and 0.9-2.0 Gt, respectively. However, tendency of two countries varied differently: growth of China 's CO2 have slowed down after the 2008 financial crisis, while India 's emissions were still accelerating at a high level on account of growing share of carbon-intensive energy in the whole energy structure. From the national and sectoral perspectives, both trends of carbon emissions from two countries have been analyzed. According to structural decomposition analysis, efficiency gains and slowdown of economic growth in China contributed to most decline of CO2 but both production and consumption structures urged emissions up, while structure effects in India slightly reduced its CO2 but low emission efficiency and expansion of trade scales caused growth of emissions. On this basis, firstly, China should optimize production structures by upgrading industries, while India should promote energy transformation and improve energy efficiencies. Secondly, strengthening cooperation and communications with developed countries with advanced technology and experience may make more progress in climate change for two countries. Experience and lessons of emission reduction deriving from the two would also provide references for other regions. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.