Abstract

Developing more effective mitigation strategy to achieve the carbon reduction targets set by the Paris Climate Agreement requires to more comprehension of the driving factors of the decline in carbon emissions. Production-based and consumption-based carbon emission in Germany declined by 2.8% and 8.5% from 2000 to 2015, respectively. In this work, the key drivers behind decline in carbon emission in Germany is explored by combing the multi-regional input-output and structural decomposition analysis. The results show German carbon emissions has been undergoing structural changes. Although its production-based and consumption-based emission declined, German carbon footprint embodied in exports increased, and its share in the production-based carbon footprint also increased. Germany's embodied emission exports to emerging countries increased, although Germany's embodied carbon exports remained mainly concentrate in developed countries, especially in EU (over 40%) and USA (∼10%). The decomposition results revealed that economic scale effect was the leading contributor to increase in carbon footprint in Germany's trade, followed by the industrial structure effect of final demand. The effects of production structure on German's exports was less than its imports. The carbon intensity coefficient was the most significant factor of decreased carbon emission. Generally, the decreasing effect of carbon intensity coefficient exceeded the increasing effect of economic scale, which lead to carbon reduction. The example of Germany shows that improving carbon emission efficiency and optimizing production structure can reduce carbon emission without lowering economic growth.

摘要

制定更有效的减缓策略以实现《巴黎气候协定》设定的碳减排目标，需要更多地了解碳排放量下降的驱动因素。从 2000 年到 2015 年，德国基于生产和基于消费的碳排放分别下降了 2.8% 和 8.5%。本文结合多区域投入产出分析和结构分解分析，探讨了德国碳排放下降的关键驱动因素。结果表明，德国的碳排放一直在发生结构性变化。德国的生产型和消费型碳排放量虽然有所下降，但出口体现的碳足迹增加，在生产型碳足迹中所占的份额也有所增加。德国对新兴国家的隐含排放量出口增加，尽管德国的隐含碳出口仍主要集中在发达国家，尤其是欧盟（超过 40%）和美国（约 10%）。分解结果表明，经济规模效应是德国贸易碳足迹增加的主要贡献者，其次是最终需求的产业结构效应。生产结构对德国出口的影响小于其进口。碳强度系数是减少碳排放最显着的因素。一般而言，碳强度系数的下降效应超过经济规模的增长效应，从而导致碳减排。德国的例子表明，提高碳排放效率和优化生产结构可以在不降低经济增长的情况下减少碳排放。