Factors Affecting Transportation Sector CO2 Emissions Growth in China: An LMDI Decomposition Analysis

China has now become the largest country in carbon emissions all over the world. Furthermore, with transportation accounting for an increasing proportion of CO2 emissions year by year, the transportation sector has turned out to be one of the main sectors which possesses a high growth speed in CO2 emissions. To accurately analyze potentially influencing factors which accelerate the process of CO2 emissions of transportation sector in China, based on carbon accounting by the checklists method of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC), in this paper, we propose a decomposition model using Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) decomposition analysis technology and modified fixed growth rate method. Then effects of six influencing factors including energy structure, energy efficiency, transport form, transportation development, economic development and population size from 2001 to 2014 were quantitatively analyzed. Consequently, the results indicate that: (1) economic development accounts most for driving CO2 emissions growth of the transportation sector, while energy efficiency accounts most for suppressing CO2 emissions growth; (2) the pulling effects of natural gas, electricity and other clean energy consumption on CO2 emissions growth offset the inhibitory effects of traditional fossil fuels, making energy structure play a significant role in promoting CO2 emissions growth; (3) the inhibitory effects of railways and highways lead to inhibitory effects of transport form on CO2 emissions growth; (4) transportation development plays an obvious role in promoting CO2 emissions, while the effects of population size is relatively weaker compared with those of transportation development. Furthermore, the decomposition model of CO2 emissions factors in transport industry constructed in this paper can also be applied to other countries so as to provide guidance and reference for CO2 emissions analysis of transportation industry.