Analysis of China’s Carbon Emissions Base on Carbon Flow in Four Main Sectors: 2000–2013

Abstract

Abstract:Reducing carbon emissions is a major way to achieve green development and sustainability for China's future. This paper elaborates the detailed features of China's carbon flow for 2013 with the carbon flow chart and shows the changing characteristics of China's CO 2 flow from the viewpoint of specific sectors and energies from 2000 and 2013. The results show that (1) from 2000 to 2013, China's CO 2 emissions approximately grew by 9% annually, while the CO 2 intensity of China diminished at different rates. (2) The CO 2 emissions from the secondary industry are prominent from the perspective of four main sectors, accounting for 83.5% of emissions. Manufacturing plays an important part in the secondary industry with 45% of the emissions, in which the "smelting and pressing of metal" takes up a large percentage of about 50% of the emissions from manufacturing. (3) The CO 2 emissions produced by coal consumption are dominant in energy-related emissions with a contribution of 65%, which will decrease in the future. (4) From the aspect of different sectors, the CO 2 emissions mainly come from the "electricity and heating" sector and the "smelting, pressing and manufacturing of metals" sub-sector. It is essential and urgent to propose concrete recommendations for CO 2 emissions mitigation. Firstly, the progression of creative technology is inevitable and undeniable. Secondly, the government should make different CO 2 emissions reduction policies among different sectors. For example, the process emissions play an important role in "non-metallic minerals" while in "smelting and manufacturing of metals" it is energy emissions. Thirdly, the country can change the energy structure and promote renewable energy that is powered by wind or other low-carbon energy sources. Alternatively, coke oven gas can be a feasible substitution. Finally, policy makers should be aware that the emissions from residents have been growing at a fast rate. It is effective to involve the public in energy conservation and carbon emissions reduction, such as reducing the time of personal transportation.

A Method for Analyzing Energy-Related Carbon Emissions and the Structural Changes: A Case Study of China from 2005 to 2015

“…Although it had large emissions (517 Mt CO 2 in 2005), the relative growth rate was only 60%, and the occupation ratio of emissions shrunk by 2.0%. This partly differs from previous work [11] concluding that the non-metallic mineral would continue to increase rapidly. Actually, during the "12th Five-Year Plan" period when China had strengthened the management and rectification of non-metallic mineral mines, standardized the mining order, and shut down nearly 10,000 nonstandard enterprises [36].…”

“…Compared with previous work in this field, Li et al [11] conclude that in 2013 the 'electricity and heating' emitted the most in the secondary industry (factory), following by 'metals' (including ferrous and non-ferrous), while chemical industry just accounted for nearly 3.1%. This differs from our results, as the division of stages of carbon flow diagram in their work only included energy sources and end use sectors, and the 'electricity and heating' was regarded in a parallel relation with other industrial sectors.…”

“…Although the application of Sankey diagrams in the analysis of complex energy flow process was popular including comprehensive stages, the application in the analysis of energy-related carbon emissions flow was relatively limited. In the published work about carbon flow diagrams, the division of energy stages was somewhat simple with only supply and end use sides [11].…”

Exploring the characteristics and drivers of indirect energy consumption of urban and rural households from a sectoral perspective

“…As the household consumption C belongs to one part of the final demand, it is reasonable to replace Y with C . Thus, the household indirect energy consumption can be estimated as where T is the household indirect energy consumption in urban or rural areas and T i is the consumption produced by sector i that is shown in the input–output table (Table A1 in the Appendix), j refers to the four major fuel types in this paper, which include coal, crude oil, natural gas, and electricity 10 ; C i (in ‘yuan’) is the household expenditure in sector i .…”

“…Despite the small amount of household direct CO 2 emissions, the annual growth rate remained at 8% from 2000 to 2013. Direct CO 2 emissions produced by household consumption are equivalent to the second largest emissions in the five major industrial sectors 10 . Thus, as a large energy consumer in the world, 11 it is essential for China to shed light upon the energy consumption and CO 2 emissions by household expenditure at great length so as to achieve a sustainable society.…”