What Factors Drive the Spatiotemporal Differences in Coal Consumption in the Yangtze River Delta Region of China?

The continuous combustion of coal releases carbon dioxide emissions, which has disrupted the Earth’s climate system and posed severe challenges to sustainable human development. As the world’s largest consumer of coal, China faces a critical challenge in curbing its dependence on this fuel. The Yangtze River Delta region, characterized by its advanced economy and high level of industrialization, accounts for a substantial share of the nation’s coal consumption. Therefore, identifying the driving factors of coal consumption changes in this region is essential for formulating targeted low-carbon transition policies. Based on panel data of the YRD region covering 2000 to 2022, this paper employs the LMDI method to decompose the changes in coal consumption from both production and residential sectors, with four driving factors for the production sector and three for the residential sector. The results show that the total coal consumption in the four provinces of the Yangtze River Delta region follows an inverted U-shaped trend, peaking in 2011, with an average annual growth rate of 4.75% before the peak and an annual decline rate of 4.64% after the peak. Production coal consumption accounts for an average of 96.2% of the region’s total consumption. The effect of production intensity and the effect of economic scale are respectively the main inhibitory and driving factors. Spatially, Shanghai was the only province with negative cumulative coal consumption growth, and its average gap with Anhui was the largest among all pairs. Finally, this paper puts forward targeted policy recommendations, focusing on improving coal utilization efficiency and strengthening inter-regional coordinated emission reduction.