Chinese cities exhibit varying degrees of decoupling of economic growth and CO2 emissions between 2005 and 2015

Yuli Shan,Shuai Fang,Bofeng Cai,Ya Zhou,Dong Li,Kuishuang Feng,Klaus Hubacek

doi:10.1016/j.oneear.2020.12.004

Abstract

Summary Cities, contributing more than 75% of global carbon emissions, are at the heart of climate change mitigation. Given cities' heterogeneity, they need specific low-carbon roadmaps instead of one-size-fits-all approaches. Here, we present the most detailed and up-to-date accounts of CO2 emissions for 294 cities in China and examine the extent to which their economic growth was decoupled from emissions. Results show that from 2005 to 2015, only 11% of cities exhibited strong decoupling, whereas 65.6% showed weak decoupling, and 23.4% showed no decoupling. We attribute the economic-emission decoupling in cities to several socioeconomic factors (i.e., structure and size of the economy, emission intensity, and population size) and find that the decline in emission intensity via improvement in production and carbon efficiency (e.g., decarbonizing the energy mix via building a renewable energy system) is the most important one. The experience and status quo of carbon emissions and emission-GDP (gross domestic product) decoupling in Chinese cities may have implications for other developing economies to design low-carbon development pathways.

Highlights

With the accelerating climate emergency, decision makers need specific sub-national information on sources of carbon emissions, reduction potentials, and effectiveness of mitigation measures
Cities are emissions and development hotspots given that urban economic activity accounts for 80% of global gross domestic product (GDP), 60%–80% of energy consumption, and 75% of carbon emissions.[1,2,3]
We examined the extent of decoupling of economic growth and CO2 emissions in each city with the Tapio decoupling index (DI)[18] and compared the decoupling degree of cities with their economic development stage and structure

Summary

Introduction

With the accelerating climate emergency, decision makers need specific sub-national information on sources of carbon emissions, reduction potentials, and effectiveness of mitigation measures. Cities are emissions and development hotspots given that urban economic activity accounts for 80% of global gross domestic product (GDP), 60%–80% of energy consumption, and 75% of carbon emissions.[1,2,3] Most global population growth in the couple of decades is estimated to take place in urban. Article ll areas in developing countries.[4] Given higher per capita emissions of urban populations due to higher income and urban lifestyles,[5,6] achieving low-carbon development in cities is of great significance to global climate change mitigation

Results

Discussion

Conclusion