Analysis of impact factors on China's CO2 emissions from the view of supply chain paths

• We analyzed the factors and key supply chains involved in CO2 emissions.
• CO2 emissions increased with the growth of urban residential and exports.
• Per capita final demand (Y) was the main factor for the growth of emissions.
• The supply chain paths with high emissions at different stages were explained.

The issue of China's CO2 emissions has become a major focus of the growing concerns, globally, for its potential impact on Climate Change. In this paper, supply chain paths that drive changes in life cycle CO2 emissions in China from 1992 to 2007 were identified, based on SPD (structural path decomposition) analysis of China's input–output tables and energy demand changes, over this study period. The study period was divided into three stages: 1992–1997, 1997–2002 and 2002–2007. The influence on changes of CO2 emissions derived from final demand was divided into six factors: direct CO2 emission intensity (e); industrial structure (A); product structure of final demand (ψ); category composition of final demand (Δ); per capita final demand (Y), and population (P). The detailed analysis reveals that direct CO2 emissions intensity (e) was the dominant factor in reducing China's CO2 emissions, while per capita final demand (Y) was the major single factor increasing the emissions. The largest influence on CO2 emissions from the viewpoint of supply chain paths was found to be “Chemical industry → exports”. The supply chain paths with high emissions at different stages during the study were “Metal smelting → exports”, “Nonmetallic products → fixed capital” and “Metal smelting → fixed capital”, respectively.