Uncovering CO₂ Emission Drivers Under Regional Industrial Transfer In China’s Yangtze River Economic Belt:A Multi-layer LMDI Decomposition Analysis

The Yangtze River Economic Belt（YREB）,which spans the eastern,central and western regions of China,produces nearly half of the country’s carbon emissions every year.But the driving factors of various regions have huge differences because of the differences in resource endowments,industrial structure,and technological levels between the upstream,midstream,and downstream regions.This paper first calculates the CO₂ emissions of all industries in the YREB region based on the IPCC method,and then analyzes the factors of the changes of CO₂ emissions in different regions using the three-layer LMDI decomposition method,and also analyzes the CO₂ emissions differences between different regions using the three-layer LMDI decomposition.From the industrial perspective,we use the two-layer LMDI decomposition method to analyze the different drivers in different industries.The results of this study show that the CO₂ emissions of YREB region have the fastest growth during the 10th 5YP period.Among them,the downstream region has the highest CO₂ emissions,accounting for about half of the total emissions.The top three industries with the highest CO₂emissions are capital-intensive industry,resource-intensive industry and service industry.Before 2010,the economic growth effect on the carbon emissions of downstream region was more obvious,and after 2010,the economic growth effect of carbon emissions change in the upstream and midstream regions exceeded the downstream region.The industrial structure effect promoted the growth of carbon emissions in various regions in the first three stages,and began to play a role in suppressing it during 2015-2017.The difference in CO₂ emissions between the upstream and downstream regions is the most obvious,economic growth effect is the main factor that causes the carbon emissions in the downstream regions to be higher than the upstream and midstream regions.The energy intensity effect is positive in the carbon emission difference between Shanghai,Jiangsu and Zhejiang and all upstream regions,and is negative in the carbon emission difference between Anhui and all upstream regions.The industrial structure effect is negative in the difference of carbon emissions between upstream and downstream regions.The energy intensity effect plays the least role in promoting agricultural carbon emissions in upstream areas,and the most obvious restraining effect in resource-intensive industries in downstream regions.In technology-intensive industries,the energy intensity effect and energy structure effect are negative in the carbon emissions of upstream and downstream regions,but are positive in the midstream regions.The reason for this phenomenon is that the midstream region has not improved energy-saving and emission-reduction technologies while undertaking technology-intensive industries.Based on the above research results,policy recommendations are proposed from the perspectives of regional coordinated development and industrial transfer,indicating that each region should fully utilize its respective resource advantages,remove the barriers to the circulation of resource elements,and realize interregional connection.Upstream areas should improve energy efficiency and pay more attention to the endowment advantages of agricultural resources.The midstream region should increase their investment in capital and R&D activities in intensive industries,and use geographical advantages to realize the flow of various factors between regions.Downstream regions should speed up their innovations in technology-intensive industries and strengthen cooperation and services to upper and middle reaches.The results of this study can provide a strong basis for exploring the low-carbon transformation path in the Yangtze River Economic Belt.