Driving factors and decoupling effects of animal husbandry carbon emissions in the Yellow River water supply area of Gannan

In order to determine the driving factors and decoupling effect of carbon emissions from the livestock industry under the goal of “double carbon”, we used the LMDI (Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index) model to decompose the driving factors, and the Tapio decoupling model to analyze the decoupling between the driving factors and carbon emissions from the livestock industry to assess the decoupling efforts. The results revealed that from 2000 to 2022, carbon emissions from animal husbandry in the Yellow River water supply area of Gannan ranged from 53.690×10⁴ to 114.808×10⁴ t, with an average annual growth rate of 1.72%. In the purely pastoral counties of Maqu, Xiahe, and Luqu, emissions from livestock accounted for the majority of carbon emissions. In addition, economic development and population size were identified as important driving forces for the increase in carbon emissions from animal husbandry, and showing a “U” evolution trend. The intensity of animal husbandry, industrial structure, and urbanization were considered as the main factors contributing to the development of low-carbon animal husbandry. Furthermore, the intensity of animal husbandry production and urbanization factors were identified as being conducive to carbon decoupling, whereas economic development and population growth factors mainly had the inhibitory effect of carbon decoupling, and in most years, factors associated with livestock production structure were found to have a promotional effect on carbon decoupling. During a majority of the investigation period, it was found that sub-decoupling effort indices corresponding to the industrial structure of the livestock industry and the intensity of the livestock industry were positive, indicating that these were the main factors contributing to “decoupling” of the carbon emissions of the livestock industry in the study area. On the basis of these findings, with respect to promoting the ecologically rational development of the animal husbandry industry in the recharge zone, we recommend encouraging the low-carbon green transformation of traditional animal husbandry in terms of the transformation of the high-carbon production mode, optimization of the industrial structure, and technological innovation of low-carbon livestock production.