THE DECOUPLING EFFECT BETWEEN CHINA’S LIVESTOCK INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENT AND CARBON EMISSIONS

Based on China’s six livestock husbandry regions - the North, Northeast, Southeast, Central, Southwest, and Northwest - this study analyzes the relationship between industry development and carbon emissions in China, and puts forward targeted suggestions for its green development. The gross economic product of livestock husbandry is taken as an economic indicator, and enteric fermentation and feces of livestock from 2001 - 2015 are used as measures of carbon emissions. The Tapio method is used to analyze the decoupling relationship between economic performance and carbon emissions in the six regions. The results show that total carbon emissions increased from 97, 192, 700 tons to 138, 152, 900 tons from 2001 - 2015. Non-dairy cows accounted for the highest share of carbon emissions, followed by pigs, sheep, cows, poultry, and rabbits. The ranking of the top three carbon emission regions changed from North - Southwest - Northeast to Southwest - North - Northeast. The decoupling type between economic performance and carbon emissions from 2002 - 2015 is mainly weak decoupling, accompanied by alternating negative and positive decoupling, trending towards strong decoupling. The regional decoupling type is generally dominated by weak decoupling, accompanied by fluctuations between expansive negative decoupling and strong negative decoupling. Carbon emissions from livestock were characterized by three stages over the past 15 years: rising, declining, then slowly rising. Changes in the decoupling effect depended on absolute changes in economic performance, influenced by carbon emissions, and the different decoupling types resulted from relative changes between the two.