Carbon peak prediction and emission reduction pathways of China’s low-carbon pilot cities: A case study of Wuxi city in Jiangsu province

Abstract

Carbon peaking is a research hotspot in China, aiming to reduce the impact of human activities on global climate change, promote the transformation of Low-carbon economy and realize high-quality development. The article takes Wuxi City in China's Jiangsu Province as a pilot low-carbon city to study its carbon emissions characters, then introduces the KAYA model, and sets different scenarios for the influencing factors, further predicts carbon emissions peak in 2019∼2030, and finally proposes the corresponding carbon reduction pathways. Results show that the total of carbon emissions in the study area is still in the upward period of the Kuznets' inverted U-shaped curve, the main factors are population growth rate, economic growth rate, energy consumption intensity and energy structure. If the enhanced carbon reduction scenario is adopted, carbon emissions peak will occur in 2025 or 2026, and the total carbon emissions will be between 120 million tCO2 e to 130 million tCO2 e, and the per capita carbon level will be about 17.5–19.5 tCO2 e. On the future, ten emission reduction pathways for China's low-carbon cities are put forward: strengthening urban spatial planning, upgrading economic structure, developing low-carbon systems in energy, industry, housing, transportation, and agriculture, encouraging low-carbon lifestyles, reforming low-carbon boosting mechanism, and improving low-carbon governance capability.