Journal of Cleaner Production 268 (2020) 121925

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Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

Carbon emissions and driving forces of China’s power sector: Input-

output model based on the disaggregated power sector
Fang Luo a, 1, Yi Guo a, 1, Mingtao Yao b, Wenqiu Cai a, Meng Wang a, Wendong Wei c, *
a
Business School, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, 200093, PR China
b
Chinese Academy of Macroeconomic Research, Beijing, 100038, China
c
School of International and Public Affairs, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200030, PR China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The power sector plays a significant role in China’s energy transition and emission reduction strategy.
Received 2 March 2020 Considering that the aggregation of the power sector from different sources in input-output (IO) tables
Received in revised form will lead to the “aggregation bias problem”, it is vital that we disaggregate the power sector using IO
3 April 2020
tables when analyzing and comparing the driving forces of embodied carbon emission changes in the
Accepted 26 April 2020
Available online 19 May 2020
power sector. This paper first disaggregates the power sector into seven subsectors; then, it uses
structural decomposition analysis (SDA) to analyze the driving forces of embodied carbon emission
Handling editor:Xue-Chao Wang changes in each subsector and allocates embodied emissions that occur from 2007 to 2015 according to
the demand categories. The results show that the embodied carbon emissions from each clean energy
Keywords: sector were relatively lower than those from thermal power during the study period. Consumption
Disaggregation volume was the main driving factor for the embodied carbon emission increments. From 2012 to 2015,
Power sector the production structure was mainly responsible for the embodied emission increases in each clean
Structural decomposition analysis energy sector, indicating that the embodied carbon emissions caused by power equipment updates or
Input-output analysis
reconstruction processes should receive more attention. In addition, the embodied carbon emission
Carbon emissions
changes induced by urban residential consumption on the thermal power showed a plateaued trend
China
from 2007 to 2015. This paper provides support for the formulation of emission reduction measures and
the low-carbon structural transformation of the power sector.
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The power sector plays a significant role in socio-economic ac-
tivities and global climate change (Tao et al., 2019). In recent de-
cades, with the acceleration of industrialization and urbanization,
the power sector in China has developed by leaps and bounds (Li
et al., 2014). Recently, the installed generating capacity of power
plants increased threefold, from 517.2 GW in 2005 to 1525.3 GW in
2015, and the total power generation increased by 2.5 times, from
2497.5 TWh in 2005e5740.0 TWh in 2015 (China Electricity
Council, 2015). According to the national 13th Five-Year Plan
(FYP) (from 2016 to 2020) in China, the per capita installed gen-
eration capacity will reach 1.4 kW, and the per capita electricity
consumption will be approximately 5000 kWh. The power sector is
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: weiwendong@usst.edu.cn (W. Wei).
1
These authors contributed equally to this work.
the largest energy consumer and carbon emitter in China, ac-
counting for more than 40% of the country’s total carbon emissions
(Wei et al., 2020b; Yang and Lin, 2016). Because China is one of the
largest carbon emitters in the world, in the face of increasingly
serious global climate change, China has pledged that by 2030, its
CO2 emission per unit GDP should be reduced by 60e65% from the
2005 level in the 21st United Nations Climate Change Conference
(Bai et al., 2020b; Zhu et al., 2020). It is obvious that the transition of
the power industry to low-carbon and sustainable energy is an
important method that can be used to achieve this ambitious goal
(Wei et al., 2017, 2020a). Thus, studying the characteristics of the
driving forces of carbon emission changes in the power sector can
help the Chinese government understand the carbon emission
situations of different power sectors and formulate effective
emission reduction policies.
Many studies focus on the carbon emissions of the power sector
(Karmellos et al., 2016; Liao et al., 2019; Zhang et al., 2013). Malla
(2008) analyzed the driving forces for CO2 emissions in seven
Asia-Pacific and North American countries’ power sectors and

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.121925
0959-6526/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
2 F. Luo et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 268 (2020) 121925

found that the production effect was the largest factor contributing database. Then, we study the driving forces of embodied carbon
to CO2 emission increases from 1990 to 2005. Steenhof and Weber emission changes in power subsectors from 2007 to 2015 using IO-
(2011) investigated the causes of carbon emission changes in SDA.
Canada’s power sector. In addition, several studies have evaluated Overall, the innovation of this article is reflected primarily in the
carbon emissions in power generation sectors with different tech- study of carbon emission changes in the disaggregated power
nologies (Qvist and Brook, 2015). For example, Kumar et al. (2016) sector using IO tables. Additionally, this study optimizes the
estimated carbon emissions of wind energy farms in the United disaggregation method in two ways. We extract the SGS from the
States. Similar efforts have also been made to analyze the wind power sector and then substitute data on industrial enterprises for
power sector in Italy and Libya (Al-Behadili and El-Osta, 2015; data on electricity prices during the disaggregation process. The
Ardente et al., 2008). remainder of this paper is organized as follows. The approaches
Notably, the above studies analyze the driving forces of carbon used for sectoral disaggregation and carbon emission decomposi-
emission changes in the power sector and are based mainly on tion are presented in Section 2. Section 3 presents the detailed
index decomposition analysis (IDA). The IDA method focuses only results, and Section 4 presents the discussion, followed by the
on the driving forces affecting direct carbon emissions and highly conclusions.
aggregates the economic sectors, which will result in the inability
to describe the characteristics of the economic structure (Guan
2. Methodology and data sources
et al., 2009). Structural decomposition analysis (SDA) based on an
input-output (IO) model is another decomposition analysis tech-
2.1. Disaggregation of the power sector in IO tables
nique. In contrast to IDA, the SDA method considers all sectoral
information and interrelationships and traces the indirect effects of
IO analysis, which was formulated by Leontief, allows us to es-
changes in the final demand categories (Guo et al., 2019; Su and
timate direct and indirect carbon emissions caused by sectors and
Ang, 2012). Embodied carbon emissions refer to total carbon
final demand categories (Guo et al., 2019). The basic structure of the
emissions emitted by commodities during the entire process from
disaggregated IO tables is shown in Fig. 1. We assume that sector E
raw materials, production, transportation, and consumption to
is disaggregated into k new sectors, containing N1* N2* ,… …,Nk* . zi;j
disposal (Wiedmann et al., 2010). The method of calculating * denotes
denotes the intermediate use of rest sector j by sector i, Zi;r
embodied carbon emissions based on environmental expansion IO *
the intermediate use of new sector r by sector i, and Zs;r have similar
analysis (EEIOA) has been widely applied at the regional level (Cai
implications. Fi and Fs* denote the final use of sectors i and s,
et al., 2020; Geng et al., 2013; Li et al., 2018), national level (Su
respectively. Vr* denotes how much new sector r consumes from
et al., 2017; Zheng et al., 2019) and global level (Malik et al., 2016).
value added. xi and x*s denote the total output of sector i and new
Considering that comprehensive data collection is time-
sector s, respectively.
consuming and difficult to achieve, the construction of IO tables
Following Lindner et al. (2013), the inputs from the remaining
generally involves the aggregation of sectors with similar produc-
sectors into the steam production and supply sector, power supply
tion structures into one sector (Su and Ang, 2010; Lenzen, 2011). IO
tables consist of data on different types of power generation sectors
and power-related sectors. There are great disparities in the carbon
emissions produced by different power generation sectors (Dong
et al., 2019; Wei et al., 2018a), and the aggregation of the power
sector from different sources will lead to the so-called “aggregation
bias problem” (Lenzen, 2011; Li et al., 2019; Su and Ang, 2010).
Thus, we should first disaggregate the power sector using IO tables
when we analyze and compare the driving forces of embodied
carbon emission changes in the power sector. Lindner and his group
conducted a series of studies on the disaggregation of sectoral data
using IO tables (Lindner et al., 2012, 2013; Lindner and Guan, 2014).
In addition, Li et al. (2019) and Ma et al. (2019) disaggregated the
power sector using Lindner’s method. However, previous studies
failed to extract the steam production and supply sector (SGS) from
the power sector in IO tables, which is an important source of
carbon emissions. In particular, as prior studies have mainly
compared the decomposition methods of the power sector, it is not
difficult to find that few studies have focused on the dynamic
analysis of the driving forces affecting the changes in embodied
carbon emissions in the power sector. In addition, the studies above
used the output weight of each power generation sector to disag-
gregate. However, early prices of electricity and quantities sold to
consumers are difficult to obtain and vary significantly between
different power generation sectors or regions.
To address these problems, we first disaggregate the power
sector into seven subsectors, namely, the power supply sector (PS),
hydropower sector (HP), thermal power sector (TP), nuclear power
sector (NP), wind power sector (WP), solar power sector (SP) and Fig. 1. The basic structure of the disaggregated IO tables.
steam production and supply sector (SGS), using IO tables. To our Note: FD ¼
final demand; VD ¼
knowledge, this study is the first attempt to calculate the output added value; TO ¼
weight ratio according to the total industrial output value of the total output; TI ¼
disaggregated sectors obtained from China’s industrial enterprise total input.
 F. Luo et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 268 (2020) 121925
sector and power generation sector are estimated proportionally to
their total industrial output value weights. Additionally, the allo-
cation of the above three sectors to the remaining sectors and final
demand employed the same proportion. We take sectoral speci-
ficities into account when disaggregating each power generation
sector, assuming that all the outputs of the coal mining and dres-
sing sector and the petroleum and natural gas extraction sector and
production and the supply of the gas sector are consumed by the TP.
In addition, both the TP and NP consume inputs from the petroleum
processing and coking sector in proportion to their power output
weights. Meanwhile, the inputs obtained from the metal products
sector; ordinary and special equipment sector; transportation
equipment sector; electric equipment and machinery sector; elec-
tronic and telecommunications equipment sector; instruments,
meters, cultural and office machinery sector; and other
manufacturing industries used in each power generation sector are
measured according to their equipment and appliances purchase
cost weights for each year. In addition, the calculation used to
determine the remaining sectors consumed by various power
generation sectors according to their total industrial output value
weights and the inputs from different generation power sectors for
intermediate and final users also use this proportion. We find no
data detailing the proportion of electricity input used in each power
generation sector. Therefore, we assume that each power genera-
tion sector is self-supported, following Ma et al. (2019). For the
added value, we assume that the primary inputs from the depre-
ciation of fixed assets in each new sector are proportional to their
total fixed asset weights. In addition, inputs from the rest of the
added value components to the new sectors are based on the sec-
tors’ industrial profit weights.
2.2. Embodied carbon emissions
The sectoral embodied carbon emissions intensity can be
expressed as
ε ¼ e  ðI  AÞ1 ¼ eL
where I denotes the identity matrix, A denotes the technical coef-
ficient matrix, and L represents the Leontief inverse matrix. The
embodied carbon emissions are composed of direct and indirect
carbon emissions (Casler and Wilbur, 1984), and the formula is
shown as follows:
C ¼ e  ðI  AÞ1  y ¼ eLy
where C is embodied carbon emissions, e is the sectoral carbon
emissions intensity, and y is the final demand. The embodied car-
bon emissions caused by different final demand categories can be
written as
Cp ¼ e  ðI  AÞ1  yp ¼ eLyp
where yp represents the p category of final demand
andCp represents the carbon emissions of final demand p.
2.3. Structural decomposition analysis
According to the relevant literature (Geng et al., 2013; Mi et al.,
2017), to analyze the driving forces of carbon emission changes in
each new sector, the sectoral embodied carbon emissions can be
decomposed into the carbon emissions intensity R, production
structure L and final demand y.
C ¼ RLy
3
We further decompose y into consumption structure ys and
consumption volume yv. Equation (9) can be rewritten as the
following formula:
C ¼ RLys yv (5)
Changes in embodied carbon emissions can be expressed as
DC ¼ Ct  Ct1 ¼ Rt Lt yst yvt  Rt1 Lt1 yst1 yvt1 (6)
where the subscript t represents the values of each driving force at
time t and the subscript t-1 denotes the value at time t-1. According
to Dietzenbacher and Los (1998), if the number of decomposed
factors is n, then the number of possible decomposition forms is n!
Following previous studies, we address this problem by adopting
the average of two polar decomposition methods.
DC ¼ DRLt yst yvt þ Rt1 DLyst yvt þ Rt1 Lt1 Dyst yvt
þ Rt1 Lt1 yst1 Dyv (7)
DC ¼ DRLt1 yst1 yvt1 þ Rt DLyst1 yvt1 þ Rt Lt Dyst1 yvt1
þ Rt Lt yst Dyv (8)
Because the carbon emissions factors remain constant, DR ¼ 0.
The average of formulas (12) and (13) can be expressed as
DRLt1 yst1 yvt1 þ DRLt yst yvt Rt DLyst1 yvt1 þ Rt1 DLyst yvt
DC ¼ þ
2 2
Rt Lt Dyst1 yvt1 þ Rt1 Lt1 Dyst yvt Rt Lt yst Dyv þ Rt1 Lt1 yst1 Dyv
þ þ
2 2
¼ DCR þ DCL þ DCys þ DCyv
(9)
where DCR DCL ,DCys and DCyv denote the embodied carbon emis-
sion changes due to changes in the energy efficiency, production
structure consumption structure, and consumption volume,
(1) respectively.
2.4. Data requirements and preparation
The Chinese IO tables for 2007, 2010, 2012 and 2015 are derived
from the National Bureau of Statistics of China (2009, 2012, 2014,
2017). Following the Classification and Code Standard of National
(2) Economy Industry (GB/T4754-2017), we adjust the sectoral classi-
fications to ensure that the sector classifications used in the Chinese
IO tables (2007, 2010, 2012 and 2015) are uniform. The dis-
aggregated IO tables contain 37 sectors, and detailed information is
shown in Table A1. The direct carbon emission inventories are ob-
tained from the China Emission Accounts and Datasets (CEADs,
2019; Shan et al., 2018). We convert the sectors in the energy
(3) consumption data to ensure that they remain uniform with the
sectors in the IO tables, as shown in Table A2. In addition, the data
in the Chinese IO tables for 2007, 2010, 2012 and 2015 are made
consistent with 2007 prices using the double deflation method (Li
et al., 2019). Sectoral price indexes are derived from the China
Statistical Yearbook (National Bureau of Statistics, 2013). We obtain
data on the total industrial output values, industrial profits and
total fixed assets for each power sector from the China Industrial
Enterprises database maintained by the National Bureau of Statis-
tics of China. Because the 2015 China Industrial Enterprises data-
base has not been compiled, we assume that the total industrial
output value weights, industrial profit weights and total fixed asset
weights for 2015 are equal to those for 2012. In addition, data on the
(4)
purchases of equipment and appliances in 2007, 2010, 2012 and
4 F. Luo et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 268 (2020) 121925
2015 are obtained from the Annual Compilation of Statistics for the
Power Industry (China Electricity Council, 2015).
3. Results
3.1. Drivers of embodied carbon emissions in each power sector
The carbon emissions of the whole power sector increased by
112.66 Mt from 2007 to 2015 (Fig. 2). During the time period, the
changes in consumption volume and production structure
contributed 295.23 and 19.63 Mt carbon emission increments,
respectively. Consumption volume was the largest contribution to
the carbon emissions of the power sector. Due to the rapid growth
of China’s economy and the substantial improvement of living
standards, industrial production and residential power consump-
tion continued to increase. An in-depth analysis of the causes of
embodied carbon emission changes in different final demand cat-
egories will be presented in Section 3.2. In addition, the contribu-
tion of the production structure was significantly different during
the study period. The production structure was mainly responsible
for embodied carbon emission decreases from 2007 to 2012, fol-
lowed by a sharp increase from 2012 to 2015. The electric power
development planning in 12th Five-Year Plan (2011e2015), which
included a series of policies for the development of renewable
energy, was conducive to reducing carbon emissions. Meanwhile,
investment in high-capacity power generation equipment and
high-voltage power grids was also included, all of which required
increasing carbon-intensive intermediate inputs.
From the perspective of the disaggregated power sector, the TP
had the largest amount of embodied carbon emissions for the study
period, increasing by 28.9% from 206.52 Mt in 2007 to 266.17 Mt in
2015. The embodied emissions of the TP and SGS were significantly
Fig. 2. Drivers of carbon emissions from 2007 to 2015 in the whole power sector.
higher than those of the clean energy sectors (Fig. 3). The values in
2015 for the HP, WP, NP and SP were 2.28, 0.68, 0.43 and 0.04 Mt,
respectively. Additionally, the contributions to embodied carbon
emission changes of the driving forces of the various disaggregated
sectors during the study period are depicted in Fig. 3. The con-
sumption volume of the TP (Fig. 3c) was the largest contributor to
embodied carbon emission increments from 2007 to 2015,
contributing 182.34 Mt carbon emissions. The consumption struc-
ture offset 129.59 Mt embodied emission increments. The pro-
duction structure and energy efficiency had limited effects on
embodied emission changes. From 2012 to 2015, energy efficiency
decreased embodied carbon emissions in the SGS and TP (Table A3).
These results indicate that the energy efficiencies of China’s TP and
SGS improved during the study period. The reason was that China
supported the use of efficient coal-fired plants (Tian et al., 2018),
and many small thermal power plants that had inefficient energy
usage were closed or reorganized. We also found that the produc-
tion structure was the largest driver of carbon emission changes in
the PS from 2012 to 2015, accounting for 81.9% of the total change
(Table A3). This outcome was mainly due to China’s rapid urbani-
zation and the unbalanced distribution of demand and the energy
base, which promoted power grid construction (Wei et al., 2017,
2018b).
For the clean energy sectors, from 2007 to 2015, energy effi-
ciency was the main driver of the decreases in embodied carbon
emissions, and the consumption volume increased embodied
emissions (Fig. 3). The contributions of other drivers were signifi-
cantly different. The production structure of the HP and NP was the
main driver for embodied carbon emission increments, while the
consumption structure offset 0.77 and 0.30 Mt embodied emis-
sions, respectively (Fig. 3b and d). For the WP and SP (Fig. 3e and f),
the consumption structure led to increases of 0.53 and 0.04 Mt
 F. Luo et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 268 (2020) 121925 5

Fig. 3. Drivers of embodied carbon emissions from 2007 to 2015 in the PS (a), HP (b), TP (c), NP (d), WP (e), SP (f) and SGS (g).
6 F. Luo et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 268 (2020) 121925
embodied emissions. From 2012 to 2015, the production structure
of HP, WP and SP led to the largest amount of embodied emission
increments, causing 0.79, 0.18 and 0.01 Mt, which were 88.4%, 91.8%
and 98.7% of the total change, respectively. In addition, the
contribution of the production structure to the emission in-
crements of nuclear power was second only to the consumption
volume. This contribution was mainly due to the growth of stricter
energy policies, and the power production mix changed signifi-
cantly (Zou et al., 2016). However, the large-scale expansion of
clean energy generation requires the use of more nonrenewable
resources for infrastructure (Edgar et al., 2015). The drivers of car-
bon emissions in each sector during the study period are shown in
Table A3.
3.2. Contribution of the drivers to embodied carbon emissions
induced by final demand categories
The IO tables show that the output of the power sector is
consumed only by some final demand categories, including rural
residential consumption, urban resident consumption and exports.
Thus, we analyze the changes in embodied carbon emissions
caused by the above final demand categories for the disaggregated
power sector from 2007 to 2015. Among them, urban and rural
residential consumption were the two main factors affecting car-
bon emissions increments from 2007 to 2015. The main reason for
this was income growth resulting in the increase in electricity
consumption. The consumption of rural residents increased
approximately threefold from 3538 to 12,480 yuan from 2007 to
2015, and urban residential consumption increased more than 2
times. However, there are great disparities in the contribution
trends of urban and rural residential consumption. For TP (Fig. 4),
the contribution ratio of urban residential consumption decreased
from 76.3% in 2007 to 68.1% in 2015, while rural residential con-
sumption increased from 21.0% to 29.5%. In addition, the embodied
carbon emissions from rural and urban residential consumption
increased from 43.34 to 157.62 MT in 2007 to 78.42 and 181.30 MT
in 2015, with growth rates of 80.9% and 15.0%, respectively.
Compared with the TP, the growth rates of embodied carbon
emissions caused by various final demands in the HP, WP and SP
were significantly higher, mainly due to China’s energy policies
vigorously promoting clean energy power generation.
Fig. 4. Contribution to embodied carbon emissions caused by final demand categories in the power subsectors from 2007 to 2015.
4. Discussion
In this study, we disaggregate the power sector in the IO tables
and adopt the IO-SDA model to study the effect of four socio-
economic drivers (energy efficiency, production structure, con-
sumption structure and consumption volume) on the carbon
emission changes of power subsectors. We found that the carbon
emissions of TP were significantly higher than those of the clean
energy sectors from 2007 to 2015 mainly as a result of China’s coal-
dominated electricity system (Zhang et al., 2020). Consumption
structure and energy efficiency were important offsetting factors
for changes in embodied carbon emissions in the TP. In particular,
China has been actively promoting the transformation and
upgrading of the consumption structure. The adjustment of the
energy structure to clean energy and vigorous promotion of tech-
nology are expected to play critical roles in achieving emission
reduction targets (Yan et al., 2016). Specifically, the government
should take major scientific and technological projects such as
shale gas, deep-sea oil and gas and other major scientific and
technological projects as important breakthroughs to promote the
new energy revolution and increase investment in new energy
technology research (Zheng et al., 2019). In addition, other ap-
proaches should be promoted to improve carbon management and
carbon control in coal-fired plants (Wang et al., 2018).
Clean energy generation is regarded as a green and low-carbon
method of power generation. During the periods of the 11th and
12th Five-Year Plans, a large number of small thermal power plants
in China were closed. Meanwhile, the installed capacity of elec-
tricity (generated by hydropower, thermal power, nuclear power,
wind power and solar power) increased from 5.20Eþ05 MW in
2005 to 1.53Eþ06 MW in 2015, with an average annual growth rate
of 11.4%. However, the installed capacity of the WP, NP and SP still
represented a small proportion in 2015: 1.8%, 8.6% and 2.8%,
respectively. Therefore, China should increase the proportion of
clean energy in the energy supply (Bai et al., 2020a), develop a
rational plan for clean energy power generation and take effective
measures such as improving the regulation capacity of the grid. In
addition, the trading system for green electricity certificates and
renewable portfolio standards should be improved. Notably, in our
study, the embodied carbon emission increases were attributed
mainly to the production structure in each clean energy sector from
2012 to 2015. The expansion or reconstruction of power plants
requires a considerable amount of indirect and direct inputs from
 F. Luo et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 268 (2020) 121925 7

the industrial sector, such as cement and steel. Thus, China should CRediT authorship contribution statement
focus on reducing all processes and associated emissions in power
plant operations, both upstream and downstream. The embodied Fang Luo: Conceptualization, Writing - original draft, Writing -
carbon emissions caused by power equipment updates and review & editing. Yi Guo: Data curation, Writing - original draft,
reconstruction processes should receive more attention. Writing - review & editing, Methodology, Software. Mingtao Yao:
We allocate the embodied carbon emissions caused by the final Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing. Wenqiu Cai:
demand categories. Urban and rural residential consumption were Writing - review & editing. Meng Wang: Writing - review & edit-
the two main factors in embodied emissions increments from 2007 ing. Wendong Wei: Writing - original draft, Writing - review &
to 2015. The embodied carbon emissions induced by urban resi- editing, Methodology, Supervision, Funding acquisition.
dential consumption of TP showed a plateaued trend, indicating
that urban areas took efficient measures to control the use of Acknowledgment
thermal power. In addition, the growth rates of embodied emis-
sions induced by various final demands in the HP, WP and SP were This work is supported by the Philosophy and Social Science
significantly higher than those in the TP. Urban and rural residential Project of Shanghai (2018EGL003).
consumption led to relatively small changes in carbon emissions in
the clean energy sectors. There has been increased electrification Appendix
and the substitution of direct fuel consumption with electricity by
end-use sectors, such as in the “coal to electricity” project. It is
foreseeable that power production will continue to increase in the
future. Thus, upgrading the consumption structure and changing
consumption patterns are highly significant for the low-carbon
transformation of the power sector.

Table A1
5. Conclusion Sectors for the disaggregated IO tables

No. Sector
In this paper, we disaggregated the power sector into seven
1 Farming, forestry, animal husbandry, fishery, water conservancy
subsectors using IO tables; then, we used the IO-SDA model to 2 Coal mining and dressing
evaluate the driving forces of embodied carbon emission changes in 3 Petroleum and natural gas extraction
each subsector from 2007 to 2015 and allocated the embodied 4 Metals mining and dressing
carbon emissions according to demand categories. The results show 5 Nonmetal and other minerals mining and dressing
6 Foods and tobacco production
that the embodied carbon emissions from each clean energy sector
7 Textile industry
were relatively lower than those from TP from 2007 to 2015. 8 Textile wearing apparel, leather and feather products manufacturing
Consumption volume was the main driving factor for the embodied 9 Timber processing, furniture manufacturing
carbon emission increments. From 2012 to 2015, the embodied 10 Papermaking, printing, cultural, educational and sports articles
11 Petroleum processing and coking
emission increments in each clean energy sector were attributed
12 Chemical products
mainly to the production structure, indicating that embodied 13 Nonmetal mineral products
emissions caused by power equipment updates and reconstruction 14 Smelting and pressing of metals
processes should receive more attention. In addition, the embodied 15 Metal products
carbon emission changes induced by urban residential consump- 16 General and special purpose machinery manufacturing
17 Transportation equipment
tion showed a plateaued trend in the TP from 2007 to 2015. By
18 Electric equipment and machinery
analyzing the drivers of embodied carbon emission changes in the 19 Electronic and telecommunications equipment
power subsectors, this paper can provide support for the formu- 20 Instruments, meters, cultural and office machinery
lation of emission reduction measures and the low-carbon struc- 21 Other manufacturing industry
22 Power supply
tural transformation of the power industry.
23 Hydropower
Due to the lack of accurate data on the relationship between the 24 Thermal power
power subsectors and the rest of the sectors, this study contains 25 Nuclear power
many assumptions when disaggregating the power sector. For 26 Wind power
example, each power generation sector consumes only its own 27 Solar power
28 Steam production and supply
power. Future research should consider more influencing factors. In
29 Production and supply of gas
addition, with the improvement of the IO table resolution and data 30 Production and supply of tap water
quality, the power sector can be disaggregated based on multire- 31 Construction
gional IO tables, which can analyze the environmental impacts, 32 Transportation, storage and post
33 Wholesale, retail trade
policy simulations and scenarios of different power subsectors in
34 Hotels and catering services
different regions. 35 Finance
36 Real estate
Declaration of competing interest 37 Other services

The authors declare that they have no known competing

financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
8 F. Luo et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 268 (2020) 121925

Table A2
Concordance of sectors for the carbon emission inventories and Chinese IO tables

No. Sectors for the carbon emission inventories Sectors for the Chinese IO tables

1 Farming, forestry, animal husbandry, fishery and water conservancy Farming, forestry, animal husbandry, fishery, water conservancy
2 Coal mining and dressing Coal mining and dressing
3 Petroleum and natural gas extraction Petroleum and natural gas extraction
4 Ferrous metals mining and dressing Metals mining and dressing
5 Nonferrous metals mining and dressing Nonmetal and other minerals mining and dressing
6 Nonmetal minerals mining and dressing
7 Other minerals mining and dressing
8 Logging and transport of wood and bamboo Foods and tobacco production
9 Food processing
10 Food production
11 Beverage production
12 Tobacco processing
13 Textile industry Textile industry
14 Garments and other fiber products Textile wearing apparel, leather and feather products Manufacturing
15 Leather, furs, down and related products
16 Timber processing, bamboo, cane, palm and straw products Timber processing, furniture manufacturing
17 Furniture manufacturing
18 Papermaking and paper products Papermaking, printing, cultural, educational and sports articles
19 Printing and record medium reproduction
20 Cultural, educational and sports articles
21 Petroleum processing and coking Petroleum processing and coking
22 Raw chemical materials and chemical products Chemical products
23 Medical and pharmaceutical products
24 Chemical fiber
25 Rubber products
26 Plastic products
27 Nonmetal mineral products Nonmetal mineral products
28 Smelting and pressing of ferrous metals Smelting and pressing of metals
29 Smelting and pressing of nonferrous metals
30 Metal products Metal products
31 Ordinary machinery General and special purpose machinery manufacturing
32 Equipment for special purpose
33 Transportation equipment Transportation equipment
34 Electric equipment and machinery Electric equipment and machinery
35 Electronic and telecommunications equipment Electronic and telecommunications equipment
36 Instruments, meters cultural and office machinery Instruments, meters, cultural and office machinery
37 Other manufacturing industry Other manufacturing industry
38 Scrap and waste
39 Electric power, steam and hot water production and supply Electric power, steam and hot water production and supply
40 Production and supply of gas Production and supply of gas
41 Production and supply of tap water Production and supply of tap water
42 Construction Construction
43 Transport, storage, postal & telecommunications services Transportation, storage and post
44 Wholesale, retail trade and catering service Wholesale, retail trade
Hotels and catering services
45 Others Finance
Real estate
Other services

Table A3
Drivers of embodied carbon emissions in each power sector during 2007e2015 (unit: MT)

Sector Energy efficiency Production structure Consumption structure Consumption volume

2007e2010 PS 1.54 12.61 17.99 32.87

HP 0.02 0.14 1.02 0.38
TP 8.49 3.14 54.93 71.38
NP 0.01 0.07 0.15 0.14
WP 0.00 0.01 0.06 0.03
SP 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
SGS 2.67 0.08 4.08 7.73
2010e2102 PS 8.22 2.60 26.87 20.76
HP 0.07 0.10 0.54 0.20
TP 23.45 3.28 63.73 47.14
NP 0.01 0.06 0.13 0.08
WP 0.00 0.22 0.58 0.05
SP 0.00 0.01 0.03 0.00
SGS 2.65 0.16 0.89 5.55
2012e2015 PS 19.74 27.52 1.30 24.52
HP 0.29 0.79 0.02 0.38
TP 37.26 16.52 2.78 52.23
NP 0.08 0.06 0.00 0.08
WP 0.11 0.18 0.01 0.12
SP 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.01
SGS 2.67 1.71 0.38 7.18
 F. Luo et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 268 (2020) 121925
Note: PS ¼ power supply sector; HP ¼ hydropower sector;
TP ¼ thermal power sector; NP ¼ nuclear power sector; WP ¼ wind
power sector; SP ¼ solar power sector and SGS ¼ steam production
and supply sector.
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