Ecological network analysis for urban metabolism and carbon emissions based on input-output tables: A case study of Guangdong province

Global warming has received more and more attention in recent years for its inevitable influence on population, species, soil, ocean, water and so on. It is essential to investigate the urban metabolism of carbon emissions which is a main cause of global warming and most of it occurs in the process of production and living in urban areas. In this paper, a carbon emission metabolic network is established to explore the emission reduction strategies by modeling carbon dioxide flows and identifying the mutual relationships based on the input-output analysis. Specifically, Eff-Lorenz curve derived from the painting of Lorenz curve is developed to compare the efficiency of carbon emissions from different sectors. The newly developed method has been applied to Guangdong province to demonstrate its availability and benefit. It is revealed that carbon emissions mainly concentrated in the secondary and tertiary industries with electric power generation, manufacturing industry, domestic consumption and transportation ranking at the top. The competition relationship reveals good interactions in terms of emission reduction while a mutualism relationship provides effective pathways to mitigate carbon emissions between pairwise sectors simultaneously. In Guangdong province, upgrading the clean combustion technology in electric power generation and energy extraction sectors would drive other sectors to cut emissions and adjusting the production structure of the construction sector also contribute to achieve this goal. The results are expected to provide corresponding and holistic reference for decision makers to develop the mitigation policies.