The evolution characteristics and influence factors of carbon productivity in China’s industrial sector: from the perspective of embodied carbon emissions

In the context of low-carbon economic development, carbon productivity has effectively integrated the two major objectives of carbon reduction and economic growth, and increasing carbon productivity has become the main approach to address global climate change. Using data from China’s input–output table for 2002–2017, this study measures the evolutionary characteristics and influencing factors of carbon productivity from the perspective of embodied carbon emission in China’s industrial sector. The results indicate that, first, China’s industrial sectors’ carbon productivity shows an increasing trend from 25.22 to 65.3 million yuan/10,000 tons of CO2 in 2002–2017, but the overall level is low. The energy efficiency factor is a major element affecting improvement in carbon productivity. Second, the carbon productivity of the 28 industrial sectors shows an increasing trend. There is a significant gap in the carbon productivity between different industrial sectors. The energy efficiency factor in all industrial sectors is positive, indicating that energy efficiency is a positive factor in increasing carbon productivity. Third, from largest to smallest in the carbon productivity are the primary, tertiary, and secondary industries. Finally, this paper recommends several approaches to improve carbon productivity from the perspectives of technology, differentiated policies of carbon emission reduction, and industrial structure adjustment.