Features, trajectories and driving forces for energy-related GHG emissions from Chinese mega cites: The case of Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing

Zhu Liu, Sai Liang, Yong Geng, Bing Xue, Fengming Xi, Ying Pan, Tianzhu Zhang and Tsuyoshi Fujita

Energy, 2012, vol. 37, issue 1, 245-254

Abstract: With China’s rapid economic development and urbanization process, cities are facing great challenges for tackling anthropogenic climate change. In this paper we present features, trajectories and driving forces for energy-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from four Chinese mega-cities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing) during 1995–2009. First, top-down GHG inventories of these four cities, including direct emissions (scope 1) and emissions from imported electricity (scope 2) are presented. Then, the driving forces for the GHG emission changes are uncovered by adopting a time serial LMDI decomposition analysis. Results indicate that annual GHG emission in these four cities exceeds more than 500 million tons and such an amount is still rapidly growing. GHG emissions are mainly generated from energy use in industrial sector and coal-burning thermal power plants. The growth of GHG emissions in four mega-cities during 1995–2009 is mainly due to economic activity effect, partially offset by improvements in carbon intensity. Besides, the proportion of indirect GHG emission from imported energy use (scope 2) keeps growing, implying that big cities are further dependent on energy/material supplies from neighboring regions. Therefore, a comprehensive consideration on various perspectives is needed so that different stakeholders can better understand their responsibilities on reducing total GHG emissions.

Keywords: Greenhouse gas emissions; China; City; LMDI (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (82)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:37:y:2012:i:1:p:245-254

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2011.11.040

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