Carbon dioxide emission characteristics and peak trend analysis of countries along the Belt and Road.

Under the pressure of global carbon neutrality, it is necessary to study the characteristics of carbon emissions and the trend of "carbon peaking" in countries along the "Belt and Road." Because most of these countries have not yet reached their peak carbon emissions, they still have great potential for growth, and peak carbon emissions are a prerequisite for carbon neutrality. This paper divides the countries along the Belt and Road into 9 country groups according to the level of economic development and industrial structure. Based on the carbon emission panel data of countries along the "Belt and Road" from 1970 to 2018 and environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) theory, a panel model was established for each country group for research. This paper analyzes the characteristics of carbon emissions and the trend of "carbon peaking" in these countries and analyzes the economic growth and carbon emissions in combination with the Tapio decoupling model. The decoupling relationship changes on the time scale as a supplement. The results show that in the study area, some countries have completely passed the "carbon peak." The reasons for this are as follows: first, the carbon peak is achieved through industrial upgrading; second, the "carbon peak" is caused by the drastic changes in Eastern Europe and the disintegration of the Soviet Union and deindustrialization; and third, the carbon peak is caused by poverty and population growth. Most of the remaining countries have not yet achieved the carbon peak. Among them, some countries represented by the Middle East are highly coupled with their economic development and carbon emissions. Middle-income and high-industrial-dependence countries are in the transitional period in terms of the carbon peak. Low-income and medium- and high-industrial-dependence countries are currently still in the stage of barbaric development. From the research on the decoupling situation, the relationship between the economic growth of countries along the "Belt and Road" and their carbon emissions has been improving in recent decades, and it is expected that a more ideal state of decoupling will be achieved in the future.
(© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)