Determination of the factors that influence increments in CO2 emissions in Jiangsu, China using the SDA method

Using the structural decomposition analysis (SDA) method, we decomposed the factors affecting the increments in CO2 emissions in China's Jiangsu Province. A comparative analysis of these factors at the holistic, sectoral, and sub-sectoral levels revealed that the effects related to the province's economic growth; in particular, the transfers-out and investment effects greatly increased Jiangsu's CO2 emissions. Overall, the import and export effects increased the emissions, reflecting the deteriorating foreign trade structure from the perspective of the emissions reduction. The energy intensity reduced Jiangsu's CO2 emissions greatly, whereas the energy structure had only a slight effect, which shows the high energy efficiency and inappropriate energy structure. The technology effect had a relatively slight reducing impact on the CO2 emissions compared with the other effects, so the input and output efficiency in Jiangsu had not yet been significantly improved. On the whole, the transfers-out, investment, and export effects increased the CO2 emissions in all sectors and subsectors, whereas the other effects on the increments in Jiangsu's CO2 emissions in the sectors and industrial subsectors differed greatly. Some policy implications arising from our study results are discussed. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.