Analysis of energy-related CO2 emissions in Pakistan: carbon source and carbon damage decomposition analysis

Carbon dioxide emissions (CO2es) are presently a hot topic of worldwide concern. It is of great significance for lessening CO2es to wholly understand the transformation pattern of CO2es among countries, industries, and the main factors (i.e., emission effect, energy intensity, economic development, population size, carbon per unit of land, land per capita, and environmental impact per capita effects) influencing CO2es. Thus, to mitigate the country’s CO2es efficiently, it is necessary to determine the driving factors of its emissions and damage variations. For this, we use the logarithmic mean Divisia index method. This research decomposes the major two dimensions, such as carbon sources and carbon damage variations from 1986 to 2020, into eight factors. The results show that Pakistan’s CO2es increased continuously during the period, with an average annual growth rate of 4.76%. Growing the country’s CO2es over 1986–2020, the key influencing factors are economic development, population, and land, while energy intensity and emission factors are the main forces in mitigating CO2es. The carbon source and carbon damage dimensions reached 68.75 Mt and 208.56 Mt, respectively, which led to a rise in CO2e. The entire set of factors is averagely moving around the major outcomes that provide significant policy measures. Finally, to efficiently reduce CO2e, Pakistan should concentrate on specific industrial paths and implement challenging, comprehensive governance to attain a low-carbon chain throughout the process. Thus, based on empirical results, this research put forward policy suggestions for cleaner production to reduce CO2 emissions further, and environmental policies must be tailored to local conditions.