scholarly journals The Regional Inequity of CO2 Emissions per Capita in China

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ting Liu ◽  
Wenqing Pan

This paper combines Theil index method with factor decomposition technique to analyze China eight regions’ inequality of CO2 emissions per capita, and discuss energy structure, energy intensity, industrial structure, and per capita output’s impacts on inequality. This research shows that: (1) The trend of China regional carbon inequality is in the opposite direction to the per capita CO2 emission level. Namely, as the per capita CO2 emission levels rise, regional carbon inequality decreases, and vice versa. (2) Per capita output factor reduces regional carbon inequality, whereas energy structure factor and energy intensity factor increase the inequality. (3) More developed areas can reduce the carbon inequality by improving the energy structure, whereas the divergence of energy intensity in less developed areas has increased to expand the carbon inequity. Thus, when designing CO2 emission reduction targets, policy makers should consider regional differences in economic development level and energy efficiency, and refer to the main influencing factors. At the same time, upgrading industrial structure and upgrading energy technologies should be combined to meet the targets of economic growth and CO2 emission reduction.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yulin Zhang

To fill the shortcomings of traditional research that ignores the driver’s own spatial characteristics and provide a theoretical support to formulate suitable emission reduction policies in different regions across China. In this pursuit, based on the panel data of provincial CO2 emission in 2007, 2012, and 2017, the present study employed the extended environmental impact assessment model (STIRPAT-GWR model) to study the effect of population, energy intensity, energy structure, urbanization and industrial structure on the CO2 emissions in 29 provinces across China. The empirical results show that the effect of drivers on the CO2 emissions exhibited significant variations among the different provinces. The effect of population in the southwest region was significantly lower than that of the central and eastern regions. Provinces with stronger energy intensity effects were concentrated in the central and western regions. The effect of energy structure in the eastern and northern regions was relatively strong, and gradually weakened towards the southeast region. The areas with high urbanization effect were concentrated in the central and the eastern regions. Furthermore, significant changes were observed in the high-effect regions of the industrial structure in 2017. The high-effect area showed a migration from the northwest and northeast regions in 2007 and 2012, respectively, to the southwest and southeast regions in 2017. Urbanization showed the strongest effect on the CO2 emissions, followed by population and energy intensity, and the weakest effect was exhibited by the energy and industrial structure. Thus, the effects of population and energy structure showed a downward trend, in contrary to the effect of urbanization on the CO2 emissions in China.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 1161
Author(s):  
Maedeh Rahnama Mobarakeh ◽  
Miguel Santos Silva ◽  
Thomas Kienberger

The pulp and paper (P&P) sector is a dynamic manufacturing industry and plays an essential role in the Austrian economy. However, the sector, which consumes about 20 TWh of final energy, is responsible for 7% of Austria’s industrial CO2 emissions. This study, intending to assess the potential for improving energy efficiency and reducing emissions in the Austrian context in the P&P sector, uses a bottom-up approach model. The model is applied to analyze the energy consumption (heat and electricity) and CO2 emissions in the main processes, related to the P&P production from virgin or recycled fibers. Afterward, technological options to reduce energy consumption and fossil CO2 emissions for P&P production are investigated, and various low-carbon technologies are applied to the model. For each of the selected technologies, the potential of emission reduction and energy savings up to 2050 is estimated. Finally, a series of low-carbon technology-based scenarios are developed and evaluated. These scenarios’ content is based on the improvement potential associated with the various processes of different paper grades. The results reveal that the investigated technologies applied in the production process (chemical pulping and paper drying) have a minor impact on CO2 emission reduction (maximum 10% due to applying an impulse dryer). In contrast, steam supply electrification, by replacing fossil fuel boilers with direct heat supply (such as commercial electric boilers or heat pumps), enables reducing emissions by up to 75%. This means that the goal of 100% CO2 emission reduction by 2050 cannot be reached with one method alone. Consequently, a combination of technologies, particularly with the electrification of the steam supply, along with the use of carbon-free electricity generated by renewable energy, appears to be essential.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Li ◽  
Qing-Xiang Ou

This paper employs an extended Kaya identity as the scheme and utilizes the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI II) as the decomposition technique based on analyzing CO2emissions trends in China. Change in CO2emissions intensity is decomposed from 1995 to 2010 and includes measures of the effect of Industrial structure, energy intensity, energy structure, and carbon emission factors. Results illustrate that changes in energy intensity act to decrease carbon emissions intensity significantly and changes in industrial structure and energy structure do not act to reduce carbon emissions intensity effectively. Policy will need to significantly optimize energy structure and adjust industrial structure if China’s emission reduction targets in 2020 are to be reached. This requires a change in China’s economic development path and energy consumption path for optimal outcomes.


Author(s):  
Junliang Yang ◽  
Haiyan Shan

The Chinese government has made some good achievements in reducing sulfur dioxide emissions through end-of-pipe treatment. However, in order to implement the stricter target of sulfur dioxide emission reduction during the 13th “Five-Year Plan” period, it is necessary to find a new solution as quickly as possible. Thus, it is of great practical significance to identify driving factors of regional sulfur dioxide emissions to formulate more reasonable emission reduction policies. In this paper, a distinctive decomposition approach, the generalized Divisia index method (GDIM), is employed to investigate the driving forces of regional industrial sulfur dioxide emissions in Jiangsu province and its three regions during 2004–2016. The contribution rates of each factor to emission changes are also assessed. The decomposition results demonstrate that: (i) the factors promoting the increase of industrial sulfur dioxide emissions are the economic scale effect, industrialization effect, and energy consumption effect, while technology effect, energy mix effect, sulfur efficiency effect, energy intensity effect, and industrial structure effect play a mitigating role in the emissions; (ii) energy consumption effect, energy mix effect, technology effect, sulfur efficiency effect, and industrial structure effect show special contributions in some cases; (iii) industrial structure effect and energy intensity effect need to be further optimized.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yingli Lou ◽  
Yizhi Yang ◽  
Yunyang Ye ◽  
Wangda Zuo ◽  
Jing Wang

Building retrofit has great potential to reduce CO2 emissions since buildings are responsible for 36% of emissions in the United States. Several existing studies have examined the effect of building retrofit measures on CO2 emission reduction. However, these studies oversimplified emission factors of electricity by adopting constant annual emission factors. This study uses hourly emission factors of electricity to analyze the effect of building retrofit measures on emission reduction using U.S. medium office buildings as an example. We analyzed CO2 emission reduction effects of eight building retrofit measures that related to envelop and mechanical system in five locations: Tampa, San Diego, Denver, Great Falls, and International Falls. The main findings are: (1) estimating CO2 emission reduction with constant emission factors overestimates the emission reduction for most measures in San Diego, while it underestimates the emission reduction for most measures in Denver and International Falls; (2) The same retrofit measure may have different effects in CO2 emission reduction depending on the climates. For instance, improving lighting efficiency and improving equipment efficiency have less impacts in emission reduction in cold climates than hot climates; and (3) The most energy efficient measure may not be the most emission efficient measure. For example, in Great Falls, the most energy efficient measure is improving equipment efficiency, but the most emission efficient measure is improving heating efficiency.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhuang Zhang ◽  
You-Hua Chen ◽  
Chien-Ming Wang

The influence of low-carbon energy on economic development is a vital issue. Using the provincial panel data in China from 2000 to 2017, this work investigated the aggregate effects of low-emission electricity. The results showed that 1) when the ratio of low-emission electricity to total electricity increases by 1%, the GDP per capita will increase by 0.16% and CO2 emissions will decrease by 0.848%. In other words, low-emission electricity can achieve the goal of low-carbon economic development; 2) the self-supply of low-emission electricity, rather than trade and efficiency, is the main reason for China’s boosted economic growth; and 3) low-emission electricity increases the regional economic gap in China. The effects of pollution inhibition and economic promotion on low-emission electricity in developed areas are significantly greater than those in less developed areas. Thus, the low-emission electricity policy in China should benefit the economy and avoid the excessive economic gap among regions. Policymakers should vigorously promote the low-emission electricity revolution and pay attention to the inclination of energy policy to the central and western regions.


2015 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ming Zhang ◽  
Shuang Dai ◽  
Yan Song

South Africa has become one of the most developing countries in the world, and its economic growth has occurred along with rising energy-related CO2 emission levels. A deeper understanding of the driving forces governing energy-related CO2 emissions is very important in formulating future policies. The LMDI (Log Mean Divisia Index) method is used to analyse the contribution of the factors which influence energy-related CO2 emissions in South Africa over the period 1993-2011. The main conclusions drawn from the present study may be summarized as follows: the energy intensity effect plays the dominant role in decreasing of CO2 emission, followed by fossil energy structure effect and renewable energy structure effect; the economic activity is a critical factor in the growth of energy-related CO2 emission in South Africa.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 4172
Author(s):  
Fan He ◽  
Yang Yang ◽  
Xin Liu ◽  
Dong Wang ◽  
Junping Ji ◽  
...  

High-precision CO2 emission data by sector are of great significance for formulating CO2 emission reduction plans. This study decomposes low-precision energy consumption data from China into 149 sectors according to the high-precision input–output (I–O) table for 2017. An economic I–O life cycle assessment model, incorporating sensitivity analysis, is constructed to analyze the distribution characteristics of CO2 emissions among sectors. Considering production, the electricity/heat production and supply sector contributed the most (51.20%) to the total direct CO2 emissions. The top 10 sectors with the highest direct CO2 emissions accounted for > 80% of the total CO2 emissions. From a demand-based perspective, the top 13 sectors with the highest CO2 emissions emitted 5171.14 Mt CO2 (59.78% of the total), primarily as indirect emissions; in particular, the housing construction sector contributed 23.97% of the total. Based on these results, promoting decarbonization of the power industry and improving energy and raw material utilization efficiencies of other production sectors are the primary emission reduction measures. Compared with low-precision models, our model can improve the precision and accuracy of analysis results and more effectively guide the formulation of emission reduction policies.


Author(s):  
Lei Wen ◽  
Linlin Huang

Purpose Climate change has aroused widespread concern around the world, which is one of the most complex challenges encountered by human beings. The underlying cause of climate change is the increase of carbon emissions. To reduce carbon emissions, the analysis of the factors affecting this type of emission is of practical significance. Design/methodology/approach This paper identified five factors affecting carbon emissions using the logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) decomposition model (e.g. per capita carbon emissions, industrial structure, energy intensity, energy structure and per capita GDP). Besides, based on the projection pursuit method, this paper obtained the optimal projection directions of five influencing factors in 30 provinces (except for Tibet). Based on the data from 2000 to 2014, the authors predicted the optimal projection directions in the next six years under the Markov transfer matrix. Findings The results indicated that per capita GDP was the critical factor for reducing carbon emissions. The industrial structure and population intensified carbon emissions. The energy structure had seldom impacted on carbon emissions. The energy intensity obviously inhibited carbon emissions. The best optimal projection direction of each index in the next six years remained stable. Finally, this paper proposed the policy implications. Originality/value This paper provides an insight into the current state and the future changes in carbon emissions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 4268
Author(s):  
Jingyuan Li ◽  
Jinhua Cheng ◽  
Beidi Diao ◽  
Yaqi Wu ◽  
Peiqi Hu ◽  
...  

The reduction of CO2 emission has become one of the significant tasks to control climate change in China. This study employs Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA) to identify the provinces in China with different types of spatiotemporal transition, and applies the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) to analyze the influencing factors of industrial CO2 emissions. Spatial autocorrelation of provincial industrial CO2 emissions from 2003 to 2017 has been demonstrated. The results are as follows: (1) 30 provinces in China are categorized into 8 types of spatiotemporal transition, among which 24 provinces are characterized by stable spatial structure and 6 provinces show significant spatiotemporal transition; (2) For all types of spatiotemporal transition, economic scale effect is mostly contributed to industrial CO2 emission, while energy intensity effect is the most crucial driving force to reduce industrial carbon dioxide emission; (3) provinces of type HH-HH, HL-HL and HL-HH are most vital for CO2 emission reduction, while the potential CO2 emission increase of developing provinces in LL-LL, LH-LH and LL-LH should also be taken into account. Specific measures for CO2 emission reduction are suggested accordingly.


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