Composition and spatial difference of agro-industry carbon footprint in Hebei province, North China

To learn the regional carbon footprint of agro-ecosystem from the perspective of industrialization can help to clarify the responsibility of energy saving and carbon emission reduction in various industrial sectors. Using the input-output table of Hebei province in 2012, this study discussed the structure of the regional agro-industry carbon footprint (ACF) and its spatial difference, taking the prefecture level city as the basic spatial unit. The results indicated that the ACF was approximately 1.05 × 108 tons in 2012, which accounted for 6.7% of the total carbon footprint in Hebei. In all agro-industries, the fertilizer manufacturing industry produced the largest proportion ACF, which accounted for 23.7% of the total ACF. The gross domestic products (GDPs) of wood products, papermaking industry and agricultural food processing industry were relatively low, but their ACFs were large. The influence and induction of the fertilizer and pesticide manufacturing industries to other agro-industries were strong. The ACFs of wood, bamboo, rattan, palm and grass products manufacturing; paper and paper products manufacturing; fertilizer manufacturing; pesticide manufacturing; and agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, and fishery special machinery manufacturing industries had significant spatial difference at the prefecture-level city spatial scale. The results from this study will be helpful for the adjustment of agro-industrial structure to develop low-carbon and energy-saving and emission-reduction agriculture in Hebei.