Abstract: Carbon footprint, as an important index to measure CO₂ and other greenhouse gases into the equivalence of CO₂ directly or indirectly emitted in the life cycle of production, can reflect the level of stress on the ecological environment of a human activity or a product. This article built a carbon footprint model to measure carbon footprint, ecological capacity of carbon and carbon deficit in different regions by using energy consumption and regional land use data from 1997 to 2008. Then the study, based on the conception of gravity derived from physics, estimated the provincial carbon footprint center of gravity from 1997 to 2008, analyzed the spatial and temporal variations and summarized the reasons for the center changes so as to understand the regional differences of carbon emissions of energy consumption. In addition, based on the index from 1997 to 2008 calculated through carbon footprint pressure index model, we divided China into five categories, namely the high degree of ecological carrying areas, the general degree of ecological carrying areas, the general transitional areas, the general degree of ecological pressure areas and the high degree of ecological pressure areas. At the same time, according to the change intensity of the carbon footprint pressure index between two time points of different areas, this article divided China into five levels, namely the ecological pressure relief areas, the ecological pressure slight increase areas, the ecological pressure moderate increase areas, the ecological pressure severe increase areas and the ecological pressure extreme increase areas.

Key words: carbon footprint, energy consumption, gravity model, carbon footprint pressure index