Abstract: Carbon emissions are the main contributor to anthropogenic climate change. The awareness of policy makers and government managers of Greenhouse Gases (GHG) reduction has been raised globally. China, the world’s largest primary energy consumer and carbon emitter, has felt more international pressure on carbon emissions mitigation. Analysis of the driving factors of energy consumption related to carbon emissions from the regional perspective is necessary and helpful for China to achieve its reduction targets. Presently, how to curb carbon emissions while not come at the expense of slowering down social-economic development is a big dilemma faced by the local governments. Aims of this case study are to analyze the energy-related carbon emissions and to find out the most important driving factors to the carbon emissions increments in Guangdong, a low-carbon pilot province in eastern China. Our estimates were based on the national and provincial statistics, three time-series monetary input-output tables (MIOTs) in 2002, 2007 and 2010 were constructed. The energy consumption, economic and population data were collected from the regional energy balance table in the Guangdong Statistical Yearbook. Energy-related carbon emissions were calculated according to the method of the IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories. It was observed that the total carbon emissions in Guangdong increased from 58.205 5×106 t in 2002 to 120.979 1×106 t in 2010. An environmental input–output structural decomposition analysis (IO-SDA) has been conducted in order to uncover the driving forces for the increment in energy-related carbon emissions in Guangdong from both production and final demands perspectives from 2002 to 2010. According to our research outcomes, emissions increase can be illustrated as a competition between consumption growth (per capita GDP) and efficiency improvement (carbon emission intensity). Per capita GDP is the most important driver for the rapid emission growth, while carbon emission intensity is the significant contributor to offset these increments. From the viewpoint of final demands, international exports & imports and inter-provincial exports & imports contribute to the highest carbon dioxide emission, followed by fixed capital formation and urban residential consumption. Furthermore, carbon dioxide emission changes caused by final demands are analyzed in this paper by different final demand categories and 27 aggregated economic sectors.

Key words: carbon emissions, input output-structural decomposition analysis, energy consumption, Guangdong Province