Investigating Low-Carbon Agriculture: Case Study of China’s Henan Province

Developing low-carbon agriculture requires investigating the trajectory, decoupling statuses, and driving forces of agricultural carbon emissions. This study explored the evolution of agricultural carbon emissions based on 18 kinds of major carbon emission sources in Henan Province of China, which produces approximately one-tenth of China’s total grain output. We then analyzed the relationship between carbon emissions and economic growth using the decoupling elasticity model, and identified the factors driving the decoupling status. This analysis was done with a decoupling elasticity model, using the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index technique. There were three key results: (1) Agricultural carbon emissions totaled 16.61 million tons in 1999, and increased by 7.99% to 17.93 million tons in 2014, with an average growth rate of approximately 0.65%; (2) The decoupling relationship between agricultural carbon emissions and economic output was dominated by weak decoupling during the study period; (3) Agricultural labor productivity was the leading contributor to changes in agricultural carbon emissions, followed by farming-animal husbandry carbon intensity, labor, and agricultural structure.