Why do China and India burn 60% of the world's coal? A decomposition analysis from a global perspective

The coal consumption behind the increasingly severe carbon emissions deserves attentions. In this study, a unified research system is established to investigate the contrastive evolutions in coal consumptions of two major consumers, China and India, and the key driving factors behind them. It combines the multi regional input-output analysis and structural decomposition analysis models, with a novel perspective to illustrate their coal consumptions embodied in international trade. By contrastive analyzing from the proposed perspectives of "source" and "sink", it is found that China and India had different trajectories of coal consumption. While the main factors driving the growth in coal consumptions in these two countries were both from the demands of the sink side. From the source side, the decreasing effect of energy intensity in China was more effective than that of India. Production structure was the second factor that decreased coal consumption in India, but it increased coal consumption in China. Moreover, energy structure was the second factor that decreased coal consumption in China, but it increased coal consumption in India. There are both similar and different drivers for the growth trend in two countries during these study periods. Both China and India have advantages that are worth learning from each other, and deficiencies that are worth reflecting on in details. China and India should jointly explore how to optimize their consumption effects from the controllable source drivers, facing with the increasing sink drivers. (c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.