The clarification for the features, temporal variations, and potential factors of global carbon dioxide emissions

In recent decades, global carbon dioxide emissions have increased dramatically, slowing down the carbon emissions increase in the atmosphere has become a realistic challenge for all countries in the world. In this context, clarifying the features, temporal variations, and potential factors of global carbon emissions are of great significance for controlling its carbon emissions. This paper adopted the logarithmic mean Divisia index to investigate the potential factors of CO2 emissions from the global, region, and country perspectives, with the purpose of providing more accurate information for the emissions mitigation efforts of various countries. The results show that during 1990-2014 period, the Asia-Pacific countries were the largest CO2 emitters worldwide, while the Europe and Eurasian countries were contributors to global carbon abatement. Economic output growth contributed the most in promoting global CO2 emissions growth, especially in Asia-Pacific, Europe and Eurasia, and North America. Population scale expansion was another determinant leading to emissions growth, and particularly for the countries in Middle East and Africa. Fortunately, the significant decline of energy intensity contributed most to global emission-reduction. However, except for European and Eurasian countries, the inhibiting effects resulted from energy intensity decline cannot completely counteract the promoting effects in most cases. From the perspective of country level, the performances of different factors were distinctly various in different countries, thus emission-mitigation policies should be established and implemented tailored to their characteristics. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.