Dynamic Input Output Analysis: Carbon, Water and Ecological Hierarchy

Abstract

As the main component of greenhouse gases, excessive carbon emissions are responsible for global climate change and anomalies. Carbon emission metabolism is essential for alleviating climate changes globally. Here, a dynamic input-output model is developed for analyzing carbon emission metabolism and ecological hierarchy. Direct and indirect carbon emissions are evaluated, and mutual relationships between various sectors are explored. The innovation of this research is summarized as follows: firstly, for carbon emission, the competition relationships reveal good interactions in terms of emission reduction while mutualism relationship provides effective pathways to mitigate carbon emissions between pairwise sectors simultaneously. Moreover, analysis of direct and indirect carbon emissions could help to extract embodied sectors with large emissions and identify whether the sectors should adjust their production structure or upgrade the clean combustion technology. In addition, ecological hierarchy analysis would help to identify key sectors lacking driving or pulling force during study period. It provides a new insight into the potential sectors which play an important role in the emission reduction. Results show that carbon emissions mainly concentrated in electricity-generation, manufacturing, and transportation sectors. In Guangdong province, upgrading the clean combustion technology in electric power generation and energy extraction sectors would drive other sectors to cut emissions and adjusting the production structure of the construction sector also contribute to achieve this goal. Tertiary industry is not sufficiently promoting Guangdong’s economic development, and therefore plays a restrictive role in the current economy. Results could help decision makers to develop emission mitigation policies.

Keywords: carbon emission, ecological network analysis, network utility analysis, ecological hierarchy, indirect emission, mutualism index