Spatial correlation of China’s agricultural greenhouse gas emissions: a technology spillover perspective

Global warming is a key issue that is related to the sustainable development of various countries, and agricultural sectors are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change and increasing climate variability. To obtain a better understanding of agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the estimation method proposed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was used to estimate agricultural GHG emissions in 31 provinces in China with respect to five factors: agricultural energy consumption, agricultural farmland utilization, crop cultivation, ruminant feeding, and straw burning. To analyze emission reduction strategy interactions as well as the spillover of agricultural technical information between regions, we used the spatial Durbin model and further explored the different channels of technology spillover. The results obtained were as follows: (1) ruminant feeding and straw burning are the major sources of agricultural GHG emissions in China; (2) emission reduction strategies interact in the various regions, and imitation behaviors are increasing; (3) the correlation of agricultural GHG emission reduction in the different regions in China is not only limited to direct imitation behaviors, and it also reflects the spillover of technical information, i.e., agricultural technological progress plays an important role in the regional linkages of agricultural GHG emissions; (4) a shortening of the economic distance facilitates agricultural technology exchanges between regions. Therefore, to reduce agricultural GHG emissions, it is recommended that all regions should establish regional cooperative emission reduction mechanisms via agricultural technical cooperation.