Abstract
Issues concerning which factors that influence carbon dioxide emission, and which administrative measures should be imposed to reduce carbon emission in Chinese cities, have been on the agenda in cities’ policy-making. Yet little literature has studied this topic from the city level. This paper first measures CO2 emission of 73 Chinese cities. We find heterogeneity embedded in the cross-city distribution of CO2 emission per capita and a nonlinear structure in the relationship between carbon emission and GDP per capita. To describe such multimodality and examine the determinants of CO2 emission in these cities, this article applies a linear mixed effect model covering the quadratic term of GDP per capita to extend the stochastic impact by regression on population, affluence, and technology (STIRPAT) model. The empirical results demonstrate that population size, secondary industry proportion, energy consumption structure, urbanization level and economic level have generally shown a positive influence on CO2 emissions in Chinese cities. However, the urbanization level is of no significance. The phenomenon of the environmental Kuznets curve varies across Chinese cities, according to which three city groups are formed. Specific policy recommendations are given to each city group in light of their unique influencing modes on carbon emissions.
Highlights
It is widely accepted that the high concentration of greenhouse gases, most notably carbon dioxide emissions (CO2), in the atmosphere is the main factor of the greenhouse effect
According to Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GPC) prepared by C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group and ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability in collaboration with the World Resources Institute, World Bank, UNEP, and UN-HABITAT, we propose to account for carbon emissions from energy consumption, major industrial products production, urban garbage disposal, and carbon sink ability for 73 cities
The estimation results show that CO2 emissions in Chinese cities increased annually and heterogeneously, and that multimodality probably exists in the cross-city emission distribution
Summary
It is widely accepted that the high concentration of greenhouse gases, most notably carbon dioxide emissions (CO2), in the atmosphere is the main factor of the greenhouse effect. This fact justifies why CO2 emissions are considered by the specialists as the best available indicator of climate change [1,2]. The Beautiful China initiative will be in practice during the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016–2020), which was proposed in the Fifth Plenum of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China This initiative aims to establish an industrial system geared toward green, low-carbon, and circular development, and to improve the initial allocation system for carbon permits. China should reach its carbon emission peak and realize its emission reduction target as soon as possible according to the agreement
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