Decomposition of China's CO2 emissions from agriculture utilizing an improved Kaya identity

In recent decades, China's agriculture has been experiencing flourishing growth accompanied by rising pesticide consumption, fertilizer consumption, energy consumption, etc. and increasing CO2 emissions. Analyzing the driving forces of agricultural CO2 emissions is key requirements for low-carbon agricultural policy formulation and decomposition analysis is widely used for this purpose. This study estimates the agricultural CO2 emissions in China from 1994 to 2011 and applies the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) as the decomposition technique. Change in agricultural CO2 emissions is decomposed from 1994 to 2011 and includes a measure of the effect of agricultural subsidy. Results illustrate that economic development acts to increase CO2 emissions significantly. Agricultural subsidy acts to reduce CO2 emissions effectively and has increased in recent years. Policy is needed to significantly optimize agricultural subsidy structure and change agricultural development pathway, if China's low-carbon agriculture target is to be achieved. This requires not only decreasing pesticide consumption, fertilizer consumption, energy consumption, etc. but also transformation of China's agricultural development path for optimal outcomes.