Understanding the carbon emissions status and emissions reduction effect of China’s transportation industry: dual perspectives of the early and late stages of the economic “new normal”

Since China has entered the economic “new normal,” China’s industries pay more attention to green and low-carbon development. However, the transportation industry is still one of the three industries with high carbon emissions at present. Based on this, this paper first constructed two scenarios for the early and late stages of economic “new normal.” Furthermore, using the extended structural decomposition model, input–output method, and energy consumption method, this paper studied the carbon emissions status and emissions reduction effect of China’s transportation industries in the early and late stages of economic “new normal.” The results showed as follows. (1) Compared with the early stage of economic “new normal,” the energy intensity of transportation industries and optimization of energy consumption structure played a better role in emissions reduction after entering the economic “new normal.” However, the input structure effect reflecting generalized technological progress did not play a significant role. (2) Compared with the early stage of economic “new normal,” low-carbon energy such as liquefied petroleum gas, natural gas, and liquefied natural gas played a more significant role in the energy structure effect with the emissions reduction effect showing an obvious enhancement trend over time after entering the economic “new normal.” (3) In the early or late stage of economic “new normal,” the final demand effect was the main driving factor for the growth of CO₂ emissions in the transportation industry. Meanwhile, compared with the early stage of economic “new normal,” the final demand effect had a stronger driving effect in the late stage of economic “new normal.” In these two periods, the second industry and the third industry were the main contributors to the final demand effect. This paper provided a basic theoretical analysis basis for carbon emission control of transportation industry under the “new normal” of the Chinese economy, and also provided a realistic guidance path for the transportation industry to carry out more accurate emission reduction from the level of energy varieties on the demand side and industry on the demand side.