Driving forces of carbon emissions in China: a provincial analysis

China is the largest carbon dioxide emitter in the world. Over the past decades, China has made great efforts to retard the carbon emission growth. This paper aims to quantify the driving forces of stagewise provincial carbon emission changes and expound the bottom-up provincial efforts aligned with China’s carbon abatement targets. During 2007–2012, economic growth as the major contributing factor posed a great increase in provincial carbon emissions, especially in underdeveloped provinces such as Inner Mongolia, Anhui, Guangxi, Shaanxi, and Ningxia. During 2012–2017, the energy intensity effect replaced economic growth as the largest contributor to provincial carbon emission changes. In both two periods, industrial structure upgrading and renewable energy expansion are conducive to mitigate provincial carbon growth, and the power sector will continue to contribute to national decarbonization. Lastly, this paper provides insight into national and provincial carbon emission abatement.