Research on influencing factors and prediction of agricultural carbon emission in Henan Province under the Carbon Peaking and Carbon Neutrality goal

Agricultural production is one of the main sources of carbon emissions, and agricultural carbon emission reduction is a key aspect for China to achieve Carbon Peaking and Carbon Neutrality goal. This study used the emission coefficient method to estimate agricultural carbon emissions in Henan Province from 2001 to 2020. The STIRPAT model was extended to qualitatively and quantitatively analyze the various factors influencing agricultural carbon emissions. Accounting for the defects of traditional prediction models, such as over-fitting, fuzzy nonlinear relationships, and insufficient generalization ability, an agricultural carbon emission prediction model based on the RBF (radial basis function) kernel ε-SVR (support vector regression) was established to predict agricultural carbon emissions and trends in Henan Province from 2021 to 2025 under different scenarios. Agricultural CO₂ emissions in Henan Province showed an overall “increasing-decreasing” trend from 2001 to 2020, with an annual growth rate of −1.18%, and reached peaks of 1.0257×10⁸ t in 2005. The main emission sources of agricultural CO₂ in Henan Province had changed from enteric fermentation and manure management in animal husbandry to land utilization and rice cultivation in planting industry. Every 1% increase in rural population, crop sown area, number of large livestock, agricultural GDP per capita, per capita rural disposable income, agricultural mechanization level, and urbanization rate caused changes in agricultural CO₂ emissions of 0.162%, 0.175%, 0.130%, −0.018%, −0.029%, 0.120%, and −0.071% in Henan Province, respectively. Among the seven factors affecting agricultural carbon emissions in Henan Province, the sown area of crops had the largest promoting effect, followed by the rural population and the number of large livestock, and the agricultural mechanization level had the smallest promoting effect. The urbanization rate had the strongest inhibitory effect, followed by the rural per capita disposable income, and per capita agricultural GDP had the least inhibitory effect. Under the baseline scenario, agricultural CO₂ emissions in Henan Province will continue to decline from 2021 to 2025, and the predicted value in 2025 will be 6.4838×10⁷ t, a decrease of 10.89% compared with 7.276×10⁷ t in 2020. The low carbon scenario I presents a faster decline rate than the baseline scenario, with a predicted value of 6.3692 ×10⁷ t in 2025, a decrease of 12.47% compared with 2020. Under low carbon scenario Ⅱ, the decrease rate of agricultural CO₂ emissions in Henan Province is the highest, and the predicted value in 2025 is 6.3383×10⁷ t, which is 12.89% less than that in 2020. This study showed that agricultural carbon peaking had been achieved in Henan Province. The further governance of agricultural carbon emissions should focuse on the land utilization of crops and manure management of large livestock, and the focus of promoting agricultural carbon emission reduction should be to steadily promote urbanization and rural economic development. Compared with the baseline scenario, the low-carbon scenario has greater carbon emission reduction potential and can realize the efficient development of the rural economy, urbanization process, and low-carbon agriculture, which will help accelerate the realization of the province’s Carbon Peaking and Carbon Neutrality goal.