Common Driving Forces of Provincial-Level Greenhouse Gas and Air Pollutant Emissions in China.

By developing a filtering framework and a sector-level multi-regional input-output structural decomposition model, this study identifies key common emission sources, motivation sources, and inter-provincial emission flows of both GHGs and air pollutants and reveals the key driving forces of changes in different emissions from 2012 to 2017. Results show that key common emission sources are electricity sector, non-metallic mineral products, and smelting and processing of metals in Shandong and Hebei. However, key common motivation sources are the construction sectors in Guangdong, Henan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shandong. The key inflow regions include Guangdong and Zhejiang and key outflow regions include Jiangsu and Hebei. The emission reductions are attributed to the emission intensity effect of the construction sector; contrastingly, the emission increase is from the investment scale of the construction sector. Here, Jiangsu could be a key target for future emission reduction because of its high absolute emissions and low past reduction. The scale of investment in construction might be a significant factor in reducing emissions in Shandong and Guangdong. Henan and Zhejiang could concentrate on sound new building planning and resource recycling.

An Economy-wide Analysis of the Energy and Environmental Impacts of International Trade Policy Adjustments for Chemical Industry in China.

In China, the proportion of energy consumption and carbon emissions embodied in international trade in chemical industry is high. It is important to consider how international trade policy adjustments in chemical industry will affect the economy and environment so as to achieve the goal of carbon intensity. This study investigates the impact of international trade policy adjustments. We adopt a computable general equilibrium model to simulate the impacts of trade policy adjustment. The result shows all adjustment plans cause economic losses. All plans will promote energy structure toward cleaner. All plans reduce CO2 emissions and energy consumption but cannot realize the carbon intensity and energy intensity target. The adjustment of tariff policy in basic raw materials sector should be smaller than that of other sectors. Raising the export tariff is the best policy choice for achieving the carbon intensity target, but other low-carbon policies should be introduced. In particular, protection measures should be taken for the energy industry.

Self-preservation strategy for approaching global warming targets in the post-Paris Agreement era.

A strategy that informs on countries' potential losses due to lack of climate action may facilitate global climate governance. Here, we quantify a distribution of mitigation effort whereby each country is economically better off than under current climate pledges. This effort-sharing optimizing approach applied to a 1.5 °C and 2 °C global warming threshold suggests self-preservation emissions trajectories to inform NDCs enhancement and long-term strategies. Results show that following the current emissions reduction efforts, the whole world would experience a washout of benefit, amounting to almost 126.68-616.12 trillion dollars until 2100 compared to 1.5 °C or well below 2 °C commensurate action. If countries are even unable to implement their current NDCs, the whole world would lose more benefit, almost 149.78-791.98 trillion dollars until 2100. On the contrary, all countries will be able to have a significant positive cumulative net income before 2100 if they follow the self-preservation strategy.

Changes to pollutants and carbon emission multipliers in China 2007-2012: An input-output structural decomposition analysis.

This study performed an input-output structural decomposition analysis on changes in COD, ammonia nitrogen, SO2, NOx, soot and dust, industrial solid waste, and CO2 emission multipliers for 41 final products over the period 2007-2012 in China. The results show that during the examined period, emission multipliers were, in general, decreasing. The main driver of this was technical effects. The effects that made a significant contribution were concentrated in eight sectors: coal mining and washing; metals mining and quarrying; food and tobacco products; paper printing manufacturing; the chemical industry; non-metallic mineral products; metal smelting and rolling processing; and electricity, heat production, and supply. Moreover, the technical effects presented an obvious spillover. Although the contribution of the structural effects was far less than the technical ones, there were still some structural adjustments that led to significant synergistic mitigation. For example, the decrease in the direct demand of the agriculture products, electricity, and heat for food and tobacco products commonly reduced SO2, NOx, and CO2. In addition, four technical effects and most of the structural effects with high efficiency made small contributions. More than one third of the structural effects that showed obvious contributions played a positive role.

Multi-model comparison of the economic and energy implications for China and India in an international climate regime.

This paper presents a modeling comparison on how stabilization of global climate change at about 2 °C above the pre-industrial level could affect economic and energy systems development in China and India. Seven General Equilibrium (CGE) and energy system models on either the global or national scale are soft-linked and harmonized with respect to population and economic assumptions. We simulate a climate regime, based on long-term convergence of per capita carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, starting from the emission pledges presented in the Copenhagen Accord to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and allowing full emissions trading between countries. Under the climate regime, Indian emission allowances are allowed to grow more than the Chinese allowances, due to the per capita convergence rule and the higher population growth in India. Economic and energy implications not only differ among the two countries, but also across model types. Decreased energy intensity is the most important abatement approach in the CGE models, while decreased carbon intensity is most important in the energy system models. The reduction in carbon intensity is mostly achieved through deployment of carbon capture and storage, renewable energy sources and nuclear energy. The economic impacts are generally higher in China than in India, due to higher 2010-2050 cumulative abatement in China and the fact that India can offset more of its abatement cost though international emission trading.