Inter-industrial embodied carbon transfers in a developed subnational region: a case study of Guangdong Province, China

The close production and consumption relationship between industries leads to the embodied CO₂ transfer among industrial sectors along with the exchange of products. Thus, grasping the situation of embodied carbon transfers from the demand side is of great significance for better reducing a country or region’s CO₂ emissions. This study investigates the embodied carbon transfers in Guangdong Province from 2002 to 2017 from the industrial dimension by applying a hypothetical extraction method. An enhanced generalized RAS method was utilized to predict the intersectoral carbon transfers in 2025 and 2030. The results show that, from 2002 to 2017, the average proportion of carbon emission output of 72.11% made the production and supply of electricity and heat sector the main CO₂ emission transfer exporter, while the other service and construction sectors were the leading importers. Moreover, the embodied carbon transfers between these three sectors are the main carbon transfer paths. By 2025, the other service sectors will become the largest embodied carbon importers, surpassing the construction sector. Therefore, it is necessary to control the consumption demand of other service and construction sectors on the demand side to reduce carbon emissions driven by demand.