Key Drivers for Cooperation toward Sustainable Development and the Management of CO2 Emissions: Comparative Analysis of Six Northeast Asian Countries

This study analyzes the key drivers of the relationship between economic growth and carbon emissions in six Northeast Asian countries (China, Japan, Republic of Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Mongolia, and Russia) from 1991 to 2015. We apply a decomposition analysis approach using Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index to identify the main contributing factors toward CO2 emission changes. To discuss the decomposition results in more in detail, we explain the energy portfolio change in each country to understand the energy and resource utilization strategy. From the results, we find that the key driving factors of CO2 emissions change and energy portfolio trends are different among Northeast Asian countries, driven by economic growth in China and Korea, reduced by energy efficiency improvements in Russia and the DPRK, while being relatively benign in Japan and Mongolia due to a combination of these factors. This result implies that we can better understand the regional cooperation policy for improving each driving factor to achieve sustainable development and management of CO2 emissions considering the characteristics of each country.