Influencing mechanisms and decoupling effects of embodied carbon emissions: An analysis based on China's industrial sector

Carbon emission reduction in industrial sectors is an important link to achieve green sustainability development. In this paper, non-competitive input-output model and structural decomposition model are constructed for measuring embodied carbon emissions of 28 industrial sectors and their decomposition factor effects in China. Additionally, the decoupling state between embodied carbon and economic growth is explored using the decoupling model. On this basis, key industrial sectors' decoupling influencing factors are analyzed. The results show that the embodied carbon emissions from the industrial sector grow at an average annual rate of 7.743 % during 2005–2020. Investment demand and urban consumption are the primary sources of embodied carbon emissions, and demand size can also significantly drive carbon emissions. However, energy efficiency is crucial to reducing carbon emissions. According to embodied carbon flows and network centrality size, six key industry sectors were identified. The number of industrial sectors achieving strong decoupling increased significantly in 2005–2020, but the key industrial sectors were dominated by expansionary negative decoupling. Further analysis showed that energy efficiency contributed to the strong decoupling, whereas demand scale would inhibit decoupling more significantly. These findings are valuable for proposing targeted strategies to reduce emissions, improve industrial efficiency and resilience for sustainable development.