A two-phase factorial input-output model for analyzing CO2-emission reduction pathway and strategy from multiple perspectives – A case study of Fujian province

In this study, a two-phase factorial input-output model (TFIOM) is developed for carbon dioxide (CO2) emission mitigation, through integrating input-output model (IOM) and two-phase factorial analysis (TFA) into a general framework. TFIOM can identify the main sectors of CO2 emission, quantify the individual and interactive effects of the main factors (i.e. various CO2 management strategies implemented on different sectors) on reduction target, as well as seek CO2-emission reduction pathways and strategies from multiple perspectives (i.e. energy structure adjustment strategy (ESAS), technology upgrade strategy (TUS), and industrial structure adjustment strategy (ISAS)). The developed TFIOM is applied to Fujian province (in China), and results reveal that industries of chemical, non-metallic, metal smelting (MSI), and electric heating (EGW) are the main CO2-emission sectors (i.e. occupying 57.6% of direct emission and 56.4% of indirect emission). The joint application of ESAS (applied to EGW) and TUS (applied to MSI) has the best effect in reducing carbon emission intensity (decreasing by 24.5%). Among all scenarios, Scenario 115 shows the most desirable emission-reduction effect (i.e. carbon emission intensity, energy intensity, total direct emission, and total indirect emission would respectively decrease by 22.3%, 7.6%, 21.3% and 5.1%, and the cost of reducing CO2 per ton would be 182 RMB¥).