A hypothetical extraction method decomposition of intersectoral and interprovincial CO₂ emission linkages of China’s construction industry

Understanding the complex CO₂ emissions in inter-sectoral and interregional interactions of the construction industry is significant to attaining sustainability in China. Many previous studies focused on aggregating the construction sector’s CO₂ emissions on a national level, with the provincial characteristics and interactions often overlooked. Using extended environmental input-output tables, we adopted a hypothetical extraction method combined with extended-environmental multi-regional input-output tables for 2012, 2015, and 2017 data to decompose the CO₂ emissions linkages in 30 provincial construction sectors. The provincial carbon emissions data from a complete system boundary informed the recategorization of China’s construction sector as a high-carbon-intensity industry. The interprovincial interactions results show relatively small backward CO₂ emissions linkages compared to forward CO₂ emissions linkages depicting the industry’s significant role in China’s economic growth and an essential target in CO₂ emissions reduction plans. The provinces exhibited different impacts on the directional push-pull, with less developed provinces having one-way directional effects. The more developed provincial sectors behaved more like demand-driven industries creating an overall imbalance in CO₂ emissions interaction between the sectors in interregional emission trades. We identified construction sectors in Gansu, Xingjian, Ningxia, and Inner Mongolia as the most critical, with more significant CO₂ emissions interactions than other provinces. Improving the technical level in less developed provincial construction sectors, considering provincial characteristics in policy formulation, and a swift shift to renewable energy as a primary energy source would aid in reducing the emissions intensities in the construction sector, especially in the less developed provinces, and achieving China’s quest to reach a CO₂ emissions peak by 2030.