There are three types of local carbon emission measurement in a country: the first is the measurement of emissions in the field of household consumption. Since the input-output method was used by Reunders AHME, Vringer K, Blok K (2003), Park HC, Heo E (2007) and others to study residential energy consumption demand, this method has been used by a large number of Chinese scholars to measure carbon emissions in the field of residential consumption. Representatives include Wu Kaiya and others (2013), Yao Liang, Liu Jingru, Wang Rusong (2011), Zhu Qin, Peng Xizhe, Wu Kaiya (2012), An Yufa (2014), Fan Ling, and Wang Dong (2014). They not only measured the direct emissions of energy consumption in the field of household consumption, but also measured the indirect emissions of indirect use of energy through intermediate inputs, giving full play to the advantages of the input-output method considering the entire input-output chain of products. In addition, the more commonly used measurement method is the life cycle method. Representatives include Liu Lancui (2006), Brent Kin, Roni Neff (2009), Zhijing (2009), Pathak H, Jain N, Bhatia A, Patel J, Aggarwal PK (2010), Wu Yan (2012), etc. This method focuses on the product perspective, and comprehensively measures its carbon emissions from the aspects of product production, transportation, use and scrapping, but this method has relatively high requirements for data monitoring.

The second is the measurement of regional carbon transfer. It includes two latitudes, international transfer and inter-provincial transfer, and the measurement methods are mainly input-output model and life cycle model. In the research, scholars subdivide the input-output model into single-region input-output model and multi-region input-output model. The single-region input-output model assumes that the carbon emission coefficient of imported products is the same as that of domestic products. The multi-regional input-output model adopts the actual carbon emission coefficient of imported products in the importing country, so that the calculation results are more in line with the actual situation. Its representatives include Manfred Lenzen (1998), Giovani Machado, Roberto Schaeffer, Ernst Worrell. (2001), Manfred Lenzen, Lise L Pade, Jesper Munksgaard (2004), Nadim Ahmad, Andrew W Wyckoff (2004), Glen P Peters, Edgar G Hertwich (2006), Zhang Xiaoping (2009), Zhang Weifu, Du Yunsu (2011), Yan Yunfeng (2014) and so on. Scholars have not only measured the direct emissions of the import and export products themselves, but also measured the indirect emissions of the import and export products due to intermediate inputs, making the measurement results of carbon transfer more comprehensive. Due to the limitations of data, there are few scholars in China who have carried out inter-provincial carbon transfer measurement, only Yao Liang et al. (2010), Shi Minjun et al. (2012), Pan Yuange et al. (2013). The research results distinguish China’s net exporters and net importers of carbon emissions. Net exporters bear more carbon emissions than their consumption levels to support the development of other regions, while net importers consume more carbon emissions than they produce, laying the foundation for the country to formulate differentiated regional emission reduction targets considering the different positions of regional development in the national economy. While calculating carbon transfer based on the life cycle method focuses more on export products, Liu Qiang et al. (2008) used this method to calculate the carbon load of 46 key products in China’s export trade.

The third is the measurement of industry carbon emissions, from a more microscopic perspective. Representatives include Chen Hongmin (2009), Jiang Jinhe (2011), Xie Shouhong, Wang Lixia, Shao Zhulong (2013), Wang Lanhui, Fu Yingjia, Xu Shuang (2014), Qu Jiansheng (2014). The research methods mainly include emission factor method, input-output method and system dynamic method. The most common of these is the emission factor approach based on activity levels and emission factors. This method is also the reference method proposed by IPCC. Whether accurate activity level data and emission factors adapted to the industry can be collected in the empirical study will directly affect the accuracy of the calculation results. According to the research of scholars, only the industry calculation results of the average emission factor calculated by China are relatively accurate, and most of them are based on the reference factors of IPCC. Using the input-output method mainly focuses on measuring the embodied carbon emissions of the industry. The system dynamics method starts from the causal relationship, through the input of the cause and the output of the result, to comprehensively measure the carbon emission of the industry from the perspective of the system.