Greenhouse gas emissions embodied in the Mongolian economy and their driving forces

As a member of the Paris Climate Agreement, greenhouse gas (GHG) emission mitigation is a compulsory and urgent task for Mongolia. However, the Mongolian economy dominated by the carbon-intensive industries (such as mining and construction) has been experiencing rapid growth since 2 decades ago, consequently influencing its GHG emissions, while the impact of Mongolia's economic growth on GHG emissions and their socioeconomic driving factors remains poorly understood. Therefore, this study applied a multiregional input-output model to calculate the embodied GHG emissions and a structural decomposition analysis was used to identify the key driving factors of the embodied GHG emissions. Results show that the GHG emissions increased from 8679 Gg CO₂e to 17,165 Gg CO₂e, with an annual growth rate of 4.65% during 2000-2015. Household consumption and gross fixed capital formation are identified as the key driving factors for the increase in embodied GHG emissions, while technical efficiency is the main factor contributed to the emission decline in Mongolia. China, Russia, and South Korea were the top three regions to outsource their carbon emissions to Mongolia by international trade. Regional collaborative carbon emission mitigation strategies from the system embodiment perspective are suggested.