Driving factors and their contributions to agricultural CO₂ emission due to energy consumption in China: Based on an expended Kaya identity and LMDI decomposition method

Low carbon development pattern is an effective way to achieve sustainable development of agricultural modernization. Revealing driving forces, driving directions and contributions of the factors which affect agricultural CO₂ emission could help us to develop low-cost and high-efficiency modern agricultural development strategies, and to generate accurate measurements. By using the expanded Kaya identity mathematical properties, we decomposed the driving factors of agricultural CO₂ emission in China into general technological factor, agricultural low-carbon technology factor, rural affluence factor, indirect urbanization factor and total population factor. Based on the factorization, we then used the LMDI exponential decomposition method to analyze the driving strength and contribution rate of the five factors of China agriculture CO₂ emission. The data used in the study was from Yearbook of China and Agricultural Yearbook of China from 1990 to 2013, and Compilation Statistics of 60 Years of New China. The rise of living standards in rural areas was the main factor driving CO₂ emission due to energy consumption of agriculture. General technology and low-carbon agricultural technology were two important factors negatively driving CO₂ emission of agriculture. The driving force of change of low-carbon agricultural technology for CO₂ emission of agriculture was more powerful than that of development of general agricultural technology. Also change in total population appeared to positively influence CO₂ emission in the agriculture, though the driving force of the total population change was weak irrespective of the calculated method used — data for whole observation period or data for specific segments of the observation period. According to the extended Kaya identity, indirect urbanization ratio and normal urbanization rate were symmetric at 50% in terms of coordinate system. Through conversion and revising, change in urbanization ratio was a moderately positive driving factor of CO₂ emission in the agriculture. From 1990 to 2013, general technology contributed –25.85%, agricultural low-carbon technology contributed –166.55%, rising living standard contributed 220.65%, urbanization ratio contributed 57.63% and total population contributed 14.12% to total agricultural CO₂ emission. It was suggested that more attention should be paid to relevant factors such as general technology and low-carbon agricultural technology development, promotion of reasonable and orderly urbanization, and to the development of low-carbon social atmosphere in order to achieve low-carbon and sustainable development in agriculture.