Structural factors influencing energy carbon emissions in China's service industry: an input-output perspective

Existing literatures on energy carbon emissions mainly focus on high-energy industries such as electricity, transportation, and construction, while there are few researches on energy carbon emissions of relatively low-carbon industries such as the service industry. But with the service sector accounting for more than one-half of China's national economy, its carbon emissions are increasingly not negligible. Based on this, we use the structural decomposition model, input-output analysis method, and energy consumption method to study the structural factors influencing energy carbon emissions in China's service industry from 2007 to 2017. The results show that (1) the pressure and space of energy carbon emission reduction of the service industry are still huge in the future. Specifically, in the sample range, although the excessive growth of the energy carbon emissions of the service industry has been alleviated, the proportion of high-carbon energy in the energy carbon emissions of the service industry is still high, and the optimization of the energy consumption structure has not been significantly improved. (2) During the sample period, the energy utilization efficiency of the service industry has been significantly optimized and improved, which leads to the inhibition of the energy intensity effect on the growth of carbon emissions of the service industry. However, it should be noted that the emission reduction effect exerted by the energy intensity effect over time shows a tired trend. Therefore, in the future, the control of energy carbon emissions in the service industry needs to take multiple approaches to work together. (3) Input structure effect, energy structure effect, and final demand effect promote the growth of service industry energy carbon emissions. This also indicates that in the sample range, the service industry as the final demand product has the characteristics of high carbonization, the generalized technological progress of the input structure effect has not been improved, and the energy consumption structure on the supply side of the service industry has not been optimized. Therefore, China's service industry still has great potential for emission reduction from the above three aspects in the future. The research results provide a theoretical analysis basis and practical guidance for more accurate and efficient emission reduction in the service industry from the input-output perspective.

Automated summary

Existing literature primarily focuses on the carbon emissions of high-energy industries, paying little attention to relatively low-carbon industries like the service industry. However, with the service sector accounting for over half of China's national economy, its carbon emissions are becoming increasingly significant. This study examines the structural factors influencing energy carbon emissions in China's service industry using the structural decomposition model, input-output analysis method, and energy consumption method. The findings indicate that despite some alleviation, there is still significant pressure to reduce energy carbon emissions in the service industry in the future, as the proportion of high-carbon energy remains high and the energy consumption structure is not significantly optimized. The study also highlights the need for multiple approaches to effectively control energy carbon emissions in the service industry and identifies the input structure effect, energy structure effect, and final demand effect as drivers of its emissions growth.