Global characteristics and trends of research on industrial structure and carbon emissions: a bibliometric analysis

The relationship between industrial structure and carbon emissions has been widely identified as a critical research topic by international organizations and academics. Using bibliometrics analysis, this study aimed at dissecting the global characteristics and trends of research on industrial structure and carbon emissions. Based on the 806 documents from 2004 to 2019 in Web of Science, this work was implemented from four aspects, including basic characteristics analysis, country/territory and institution analysis, category and journal analysis, and reference and keyword analysis. The results of this study showed rapid growth trends of research on industrial structure and carbon emissions from 2015 to 2019. The collaborations among countries and institutions were extensive worldwide with China, the USA, and the UK as the main participants. Furthermore, the corresponding research topics, research priorities, and research paths were summarized according to the references co-citation analysis and keywords cluster analysis, which from the perspective of the correlation between different types of industry with carbon emissions. Finally, the timezone view of the top 100 keywords indicated that the emerging trends in the research on industrial structure and carbon emissions were regional analysis, industrialization, and environmental efficiency, and prediction of carbon emissions peak and the spatial distribution in different types of industries were the hotspots in recent years. The findings provide a better understanding of global characteristics and trends that have emerged in this field, which can also offer reference for future research.