Evaluating the potential of achieving carbon neutrality at the neighborhood scale in urban areas

Abstract

With increasing concern about global climate change, quite a few cities have established the target of achieving carbon neutrality in decades. However, urban blocks, as the fundamental units of the city, are rarely evaluated for the potential of achieving dynamical carbon neutrality due to the difficulty in exhaustively collecting multi-source data and determining the exact spatial scope of these data at a neighborhood scale. To address this problem, we combined the eddy covariance system and bottom-up models to explore the correlations between CO2 sources/sinks and the total CO2 flux by the general additive model (GAM) at the neighborhood scale. Based on the GAM results, this study further established four scenarios to quantitatively evaluate the potential and the possibility for the study area of achieving carbon neutrality. The simulation of the total CO2 emissions of the study area in 2050 under the four scenarios (Baseline, Transportation, Building, and Multi-sector-joint) would reach 7.64, 2.32, 6.11, and -1.27 kg CO2 m−2 year−1, respectively, which suggested that Multi-sector-joint Scenario would successfully realize the goal of emitting zero CO2 in 2050 in the study area. This study offers empirical evidence that helps policymakers to facilitate cities’ transition towards sustainable and carbon-neutral development.