Study on the gravity movement and decoupling state of global energy-related CO₂ emissions

Nowadays, developing countries make more and more contributions to CO₂ emissions in the world. Thus, it is interesting to explore the gravity movement and decoupling state of global CO₂ emissions. Firstly, the gravity movement of global CO₂ emissions is explored based on the gravity theory. Then, the contribution decomposition method (CDM) is adopted to identify leading forces of gravity movement. Finally, the decoupling state of CO₂ emissions in most countries from economic development (GDP) are studied. In 2015, the biggest CO₂ emitter was China, which accounted for 27.52% of global CO₂ emissions. In 2015, the country with the biggest per capita CO₂ emissions was Qatar. Per capita CO₂ emissions for some developed countries in 2015 were lower than that in 1965. Over 1965-2015, the gravity center for global CO₂ emissions moves towards the southeast, which is divided into two stages. The gravity movement of per capita CO₂ emissions is towards southeast and is divided into four stages. Over 1990-2015, economic growth in 17 countries presented decoupling with CO₂ emissions. Strong decoupling (SD) rarely occurred in developing countries, especially in the period 2010-2015.