Extreme events and carbon emissions: What we could learn from decomposition of national- and sector-carbon emission

The lockdown policies related with the COVID-19 pandemic brings carbon emissions slump, but emissions potentially restore to increase as lockdown policies relaxed and the economy recovers. In this context, this study aims to explore the changes in carbon emissions and their underlying factors in the post-COVID-19 era from a national and sectoral perspective by drawing on the experience of carbon emissions before and after the 2008 global crisis. The latest extreme event and carbon emission trends might provide some implications for curbing potential emission rebound after the pandemic. The results indicate that, (i) developing countries like China and India still struggle with carbon reduction, which need more efforts made to control continuously increased carbon emission; (ii) energy intensity and economic level are respectively major contributor and inhibitor to national and industrial emission reduction whether in developing or developed countries, while in developed countries, energy intensity has a slightly stronger impact on carbon emissions than economic level. Carbon intensity had both positive and negative impact on carbon emission, and population scale usually drove carbon emission increase, particularly in developing countries like India; (iii) Industrial carbon emissions vary widely across economies, but most industrial carbon emissions continue to decrease in developed countries while increase in developing countries. Therefore, we contend that energy intensity is the key point to prevent a potential rebound of emission in post-COVID-19 era.