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The industrial sector is characterized by high energy consumption and high carbon emissions. It is of great significance to clarify the determinants of industrial CO 2 emissions for emissions abatement policy making. For this purpose, a comprehensive decomposition framework that can quantify the impacts of both oriented technologies and economic factors on CO 2 emissions is developed. By applying the proposed decomposition framework, this paper investigates the determinants of China's industrial CO 2 emissions. The main findings show that, during the study period, (1) investment scale expansion was the leading factor promoting emissions growth; (2) against our expectations, efforts for energy structure adjustment failed to curb emissions but had marginal promoting effects on emissions growth; (3) energy-oriented and output-oriented technologies were indispensable contributors to emissions mitigation, followed by decreases in investment efficiency, potential energy intensity, and the CO 2 emission coefficient; and (4) energy use efficiency and production efficiency changes usually exerted moderate influences on industrial CO 2 emissions, and their influencing directions were sensitive in different sub-industries and Five-Year Plan periods. In most situations, the inhibiting effects could not counteract the promoting effects. Based on these empirical findings, policy recommendations to further reduce industrial CO 2 emissions are provided. • Empirical analysis was conducted at sub-industries and different FYPs levels. • Investment scale was the leading factor promoting industrial CO 2 emissions. • The technology progress contributed most to emission mitigation. • Driving effects distinctly differed among sub-industries and FYP periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Middle-class expansion has played a crucial role in driving the changes in embodied carbon emissions. However, its driving mechanisms still need to be clarified. In this paper, we compiled novel multiregional input-output tables to capture the rise of the middle class in China in terms of its expansion and consumption pattern changes. Structural path analysis was employed to investigate the critical paths of embodied carbon emissions from middle classes of different regions in China during 2012–2015. Structural path decomposition was further used to explore the driving factors along the paths, including changes in population size, consumption patterns, industrial structure, and carbon intensity. Our results show that, from 2012 to 2015, the role of the middle class in driving carbon emissions through the most critical paths was either enhanced or reduced depending on different factorial changes. Generally, the paths with enhanced roles of the middle class stemmed from the urban and rural middle classes in Central China, Southwestern Coastal, and Northern Coastal regions, and the changes in consumption patterns and population of the urban middle class were the main driving factors. The top 30 paths of carbon emissions growth driven by the urban and rural middle classes approximately increase 19.5 Mt and 8 Mt of carbon emissions, respectively. In contrast, most of the paths with the weakened role of the middle class were intraregional paths in the Southern Coastal and Eastern Coastal regions, and carbon intensity was the dominant factor governing the changes. Our analysis systematically revealed, for the first time, the heterogeneous impacts and driving factors of middle-class expansion in different regions of China on carbon emissions. Therefore, it provides new insights for climate mitigation in the context of China's plan to cultivate a majority middle-class society. • New multiregional input-output tables are compiled for the rise of the middle class in China. • Middle-class expansion has heterogeneous effects on regional carbon emissions. • Urban and rural middle class lead to an incease of 19.5 and 8 Mt CO2 for top 30 paths, respectively. • Four driving factors play different roles in supply chains affecting carbon emissions. • Consumption patterns and urban middle-class size changes were the main driving factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Petroleum refining is a technology complex, energy- and CO 2 emission-intensive industrial process, which is affected by the type and property of the crude oil. China has been the exploitation of crude oil to paraffinic most. This paper targets to quantify and evaluate the material or energy metabolism and environment loads of paraffin-based petroleum at refining process unit-level through the established petroleum flow and energy flow on the CO 2 emissions accounting framework, and explores energy conservation and CO 2 emission reduction pathways and policy implications, using a typical paraffin-based petroleum refining enterprise in China as a case. The results indicated that the crude oil from the inputs were fractionated in the atmospheric and vacuum distillation (AVD) unit, and its energy consumption and CO 2 emissions accounted for 14.38% and 13.2% of the total energy consumption and CO 2 emissions in the case study, respectively. With the transformation of petroleum refinery plant structure, fluid catalytic cracking (FCC), ketone benzol dewaxing (KBD), and delayed coking units dominated more energy consumption and CO 2 emissions. FCC unit was both the largest energy consumer and supplier, flue gas waste heat recovery efficiency of which was an important factor affecting energy conservation and CO 2 emission reduction for FCC unit and even enterprise. KBD unit records the largest energy and CO 2 emission intensities, which are 67.95 kgce/t product and 256.82 kgCO 2e /t product respectively, due to the high wax content of paraffin-based crude oil and the coal-dominated power generation structure. Based on these research findings, three mitigation policy recommendations were proposed, including the improvement of energy efficiency, optimization of energy consumption structure and product output structure. Carbon capture and storage can reduce CO 2 emission by about a third in the concentrated units of primary energy consumption (i.e. AVD, FCC, and DC). The results of this paper are key components of the life cycle assessment of the CO 2 emissions of petroleum fuels produced by domestic paraffin-based crude oil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]