3.2.5. The Final Services Level

In final services (which is also the demand side, as shown in Figure 5e), results show the strongest driving force of carbon emissions was the demand for structural materials (CO2 emissions increased by 2218Mt, the occupation ratio of emissions increased by 3.9%) and passenger service (the relative growth rate was as high as 166%, the occupation ratio increased by 2.1%). The increase of demand for structural materials was closely related to the rapid urbanization process and the rapid development of the infrastructure construction industry in China in the past decade. Compared with national economic statistics [37], during 2006–2011, the total output value of the construction industry maintained a super-high-speed growth of more than 20% for six consecutive years as the pillar industry of economic growth, which caused large demand for structural materials.

In contrast, the occupation ratio of thermal comfort and sustenance demands in emission responsibility significantly reduced (thermal comfort reduced by 2.3% and sustenance reduced by 2.2%). The slowdown in emissions growth of thermal comfort was mainly related to the improvement of energy efficiency of heated/cooled system in building passive systems, which had been explained in Section 3.2.3. The slowdown in emissions growth of sustenance was related to the reduction of proportion of the primary industry such as agriculture [26]. This also reflected the rising of people's life pursuit from sustenance to high-quality life.
