A comparative study of CO₂ emissions from provincial transportation industry before and after COVID-19 in China

As a major carbon emitter in the world, China has put forward the “carbon peaking and carbon neutrality” strategy to address climate change, of which the transportation sector is a key contributor. Outbroken at the end of 2019 and led to production stops and transport blockades in China, how did COVID-19 impact on transportation sector’s carbon emissions? Current research focuses on direct carbon emissions changes, however, more attention should be paid to the change of the interregional carbon emission path and carbon emission linkage. Based on the carbon emission data of provincial sectors in the existing studies and the input-output data from the CEADS database, the Environmentally Extended Multi-Regional Input-Output (EE-MRIO) model was used to analyze the regional carbon emissions linkages changes in the transportation sector during 2018.12-2019.5 and 2019.12-2020.5, and the Structural Path Analysis (SPA) was used to identify key carbon emission paths. The results showed that: (1) The pandemic reduced the transportation sector’s carbon emissions driving capacity to other sectors. (2) The key provincial transportation sector with carbon emission linkage remained unchanged. The transportation sectors in Beijing, Guangdong, Henan, Zhejiang, and Shanghai were the top carbon emissions importers, while the ones in Henan, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, and Hebei are the top carbon emissions exporters. (3) The key paths of carbon emissions in the transportation sector were basically unchanged. From both backward and forward perspectives, zeroth-order steps that represent the most direct carbon emission linkages within the supply chain, were still the most-emitted paths; and higher-order steps that represent indirect carbon emissions still mostly existed between the transportation sector and the power sector. This study highlights the impact of emergencies on carbon emissions in the transportation sector, and offers new insights into its long-term decarbonization transition.