A comparison analysis of the decoupling carbon emissions from economic growth in three industries of Heilongjiang province in China

Growing environmental pressure urges China to develop in a sustainable and low carbon way, and thus China strives to achieve a carbon peak by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060. As the main energy and heavy industry based in China, carbon emissions in Heilongjiang Provice play a crucial role in achieving China’s climate change targets. Compared with countries with similar populations, Heilongjiang Province (HLJP)’s carbon emissions are still at a low level. In the research on Heilongjiang Province’s carbon emissions among three industries, we apply Tapio decoupling and the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) method to analyze the decoupling elasticity and effort index of three industries’ growth and carbon emissions in HLJP from 2005 to 2017. Moreover, Deng’s grey relation model is adopted to judge the relation degree between industries and carbon emissions. The results show that: (1) with respect to decoupling, the secondary industry is in a relatively stable state of decoupling; however, the decoupling state of the primary industry is not stable at all, which appears expansive or negative in the studies over the past years. (2) The carbon emissions of three industries show an upward trend during the study period, of which the economic scale effect contributes most, while the energy intensity was the main inhibitor to carbon emissions. (3) Three industrial-economic structures are related to carbon emissions at a high level. The tertiary industry ranks the first, which is followed by the secondary industry and then the primary industry. The economic growth of the tertiary industry is much faster than the other two, hence, its relation degree is the highest. Overall, our analysis can provide an effective reference for the decline of carbon emissions in each industry.