IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/appene/v325y2022ics030626192201159x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

High-resolution accounting of urban emissions in China

Author

Listed:
  • Cai, Bofeng
  • Liu, Helin
  • Zhang, Xiaoling
  • Pan, Haozhi
  • Zhao, Mengxue
  • Zheng, Tianming
  • Nie, Jingxin
  • Du, Mengbing
  • Dhakal, Shobhakar

Abstract

The cities of China, the world’s largest CO2 emitting country, play a crucial role in mitigating global climate change by their pursuit of carbon neutrality. However, assessing their decarbonization levels with internationally recognized metrics such as the OECD cities’ criteria is a major challenge, as the fuzzy definitions of China’s cities – including by city administrative boundary (UB1), city district boundary (UB2), and urban built-up area (UB3) – create misconceptions and ambiguities over the integrity and accuracy of their reported emissions. In this study, we develop a new China high-resolution emission database (CHRED) as a means of quantifying urban emissions based on dynamic city limits defined by population density boundary (UB4). Employing a 1 km grid dataset built from point-emission sources, it is showed that: (1) the reported emissions from the adoption of different urban boundaries can have differences as large as 17.77 %; (2) the spatial structure of China’s urban CO2 emissions has a clustered pattern reflecting the country’s spatial urban agglomeration structure; (3) the CO2 emissions per capita of China mega UB4 cities are similar to OECD C40 cities; and (4) that nonindustrial emissions are influenced by geographical location and population density.

Suggested Citation

  • Cai, Bofeng & Liu, Helin & Zhang, Xiaoling & Pan, Haozhi & Zhao, Mengxue & Zheng, Tianming & Nie, Jingxin & Du, Mengbing & Dhakal, Shobhakar, 2022. "High-resolution accounting of urban emissions in China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 325(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:325:y:2022:i:c:s030626192201159x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2022.119896
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030626192201159X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.apenergy.2022.119896?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mindali, Orit & Raveh, Adi & Salomon, Ilan, 2004. "Urban density and energy consumption: a new look at old statistics," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 143-162, February.
    2. Xuemei Bai & Richard J. Dawson & Diana Ürge-Vorsatz & Gian C. Delgado & Aliyu Salisu Barau & Shobhakar Dhakal & David Dodman & Lykke Leonardsen & Valérie Masson-Delmotte & Debra C. Roberts & Seth Schu, 2018. "Six research priorities for cities and climate change," Nature, Nature, vol. 555(7694), pages 23-25, March.
    3. Liu, Yong & Fan, Peilei & Yue, Wenze & Song, Yan, 2018. "Impacts of land finance on urban sprawl in China: The case of Chongqing," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 420-432.
    4. Riley M. Duren & Charles E. Miller, 2012. "Measuring the carbon emissions of megacities," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 2(8), pages 560-562, August.
    5. Douglas Almond & Yuyu Chen & Michael Greenstone & Hongbin Li, 2009. "Winter Heating or Clean Air? Unintended Impacts of China's Huai River Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 184-190, May.
    6. Mark Watts, 2017. "Cities spearhead climate action," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 7(8), pages 537-538, August.
    7. Cai, Bofeng & Zhang, Lixiao, 2014. "Urban CO2 emissions in China: Spatial boundary and performance comparison," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 557-567.
    8. Chen, Qianli & Cai, Bofeng & Dhakal, Shobhakar & Pei, Sha & Liu, Chunlan & Shi, Xiaoping & Hu, Fangfang, 2017. "CO2 emission data for Chinese cities," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 198-208.
    9. Mi, Zhifu & Zheng, Jiali & Meng, Jing & Zheng, Heran & Li, Xian & Coffman, D'Maris & Woltjer, Johan & Wang, Shouyang & Guan, Dabo, 2019. "Carbon emissions of cities from a consumption-based perspective," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 235(C), pages 509-518.
    10. He, Qingsong & He, Weishan & Song, Yan & Wu, Jiayu & Yin, Chaohui & Mou, Yanchuan, 2018. "The impact of urban growth patterns on urban vitality in newly built-up areas based on an association rules analysis using geographical ‘big data’," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 726-738.
    11. Lee, Sungwon & Lee, Bumsoo, 2014. "The influence of urban form on GHG emissions in the U.S. household sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 534-549.
    12. Dhakal, Shobhakar, 2009. "Urban energy use and carbon emissions from cities in China and policy implications," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(11), pages 4208-4219, November.
    13. C. A. Kennedy & N. Ibrahim & D. Hoornweg, 2014. "Low-carbon infrastructure strategies for cities," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 4(5), pages 343-346, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Haitao Ji & Xiaoshun Li & Yiwei Geng & Xin Chen & Yuexiang Wang & Jumei Cheng & Zhuang Chen, 2023. "Delineation of Urban Development Boundary and Carbon Emission Effects in Xuzhou City, China," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(9), pages 1-16, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chao Liu & Sen Huang & Peng Xu & Zhong-ren Peng, 2018. "Exploring an integrated urban carbon dioxide (CO2) emission model and mitigation plan for new cities," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 45(5), pages 821-841, September.
    2. Thomas Wiedmann & Guangwu Chen & Anne Owen & Manfred Lenzen & Michael Doust & John Barrett & Kristian Steele, 2021. "Three‐scope carbon emission inventories of global cities," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 25(3), pages 735-750, June.
    3. Chen, Shaoqing & Long, Huihui & Chen, Bin & Feng, Kuishuang & Hubacek, Klaus, 2020. "Urban carbon footprints across scale: Important considerations for choosing system boundaries," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 259(C).
    4. Jie Zhao & Nguyen Xuan Thinh & Cheng Li, 2017. "Investigation of the Impacts of Urban Land Use Patterns on Energy Consumption in China: A Case Study of 20 Provincial Capital Cities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(8), pages 1-22, August.
    5. Lixiao Zhang & Qiuhong Hu & Fan Zhang, 2014. "Input-Output Modeling for Urban Energy Consumption in Beijing: Dynamics and Comparison," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(3), pages 1-11, March.
    6. Xiaofeng Lv & Kun Lin & Lingshan Chen & Yongzhong Zhang, 2022. "Does Retirement Affect Household Energy Consumption Structure? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-14, September.
    7. Qing Su, 2017. "Travel Demand Management Policy Instruments, Urban Spatial Characteristics, and Household Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Travel in the US Urban Areas," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 7(3), pages 157-166.
    8. Li, Jia Shuo & Zhou, H.W. & Meng, Jing & Yang, Q. & Chen, B. & Zhang, Y.Y., 2018. "Carbon emissions and their drivers for a typical urban economy from multiple perspectives: A case analysis for Beijing city," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 226(C), pages 1076-1086.
    9. Guo, Shan & Li, Yilin & Hu, Yunhao & Xue, Fan & Chen, Bin & Chen, Zhan-Ming, 2020. "Embodied energy in service industry in global cities: A study of six Asian cities," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    10. Assed Haddad & Ahmed Hammad & Danielle Castro & Diego Vasco & Carlos Alberto Pereira Soares, 2021. "Framework for Assessing Urban Energy Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-18, August.
    11. Fouad Khan & Benjamin K. Sovacool, 2016. "Testing the efficacy of voluntary urban greenhouse gas emissions inventories," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 139(2), pages 141-154, November.
    12. Michele Acuto & Benjamin Leffel, 2021. "Understanding the global ecosystem of city networks," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(9), pages 1758-1774, July.
    13. Fuzhong Chen & Muzzammil Hussain & Jawad Ahmad Khan & Ghulam Mustafa Mir & Zeeshan Khan, 2021. "Voluntary disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions by cities under carbon disclosure project: A sustainable development approach," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(4), pages 719-727, July.
    14. Zhang, Pengfei & Cai, Wenqiu & Yao, Mingtao & Wang, Zhiyou & Yang, Luzhen & Wei, Wendong, 2020. "Urban carbon emissions associated with electricity consumption in Beijing and the driving factors," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 275(C).
    15. Rui Wang & Quan Yuan, 2017. "Are denser cities greener? Evidence from China, 2000–2010," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(3), pages 179-189, August.
    16. Chen, Qianli & Cai, Bofeng & Dhakal, Shobhakar & Pei, Sha & Liu, Chunlan & Shi, Xiaoping & Hu, Fangfang, 2017. "CO2 emission data for Chinese cities," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 198-208.
    17. Xuecheng Wang & Xu Tang & Zhenhua Feng & Yi Zhang, 2019. "Characterizing the Embodied Carbon Emissions Flows and Ecological Relationships among Four Chinese Megacities and Other Provinces," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-19, May.
    18. Xiaomei Yan & Shenghui Cui & Lilai Xu & Jianyi Lin & Ghaffar Ali, 2018. "Carbon Footprints of Urban Residential Buildings: A Household Survey-Based Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-14, April.
    19. Changlong Sun & Yongli Zhang & Wenwen Ma & Rong Wu & Shaojian Wang, 2022. "The Impacts of Urban Form on Carbon Emissions: A Comprehensive Review," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-20, August.
    20. Wang, Saige & Chen, Bin, 2018. "Three-Tier carbon accounting model for cities," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 229(C), pages 163-175.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:325:y:2022:i:c:s030626192201159x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.