Decomposition of industrial CO2 emissions:: The case of European Union

This paper aims at identifying the factors that have influenced changes in the level of industrial CO2 emissions. By means of an algebraic decomposition method the observed changes are analyzed into four different factors: output level, energy intensity, fuel mix and structural change. The application study refers to the industrial sector of European Union countries. The results show that CO2 emissions are possible to decrease without negatively affecting economic growth. In this sense, they confirm the decoupling of economic growth from energy consumption realized in the developed countries and prove that this detachment holds true also for the atmospheric emissions associated with energy use. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. JEL classification: Q40.