Residential Energy-Related CO2 Emissions in China’s Less Developed Regions: A Case Study of Jiangxi

Yong Yang,Junsong Jia,Chundi Chen

doi:10.3390/su12052000

Abstract

The residential sector is the second-largest consumer of energy in China. However, little attention has been paid to reducing the residential CO2 emissions of China’s less developed or undeveloped regions. Taking Jiangxi as a case study, this paper thus aims at fully analyzing the difference of the residential energy-related CO2 emissions between urban and rural regions based on the Log-Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) and Tapio decoupling model. The main results are showed as follows: (1) Since 2008, residential energy-related CO2 emissions have increased rapidly in both urban and rural Jiangxi. From 2000 to 2017, the residential energy-related CO2 emissions per capita in rural regions rapidly increased and exceeded that in urban regions after 2015. Furthermore, the residential energy structures had become multiple in both urban and rural regions, but rural regions still had room to optimize its energy structure. (2) Over the study period, consumption expenditure per capita played the dominant role in increasing the residential energy-related CO2 emissions in both urban and rural regions, followed by energy demand and energy structure. Energy price had the most important effect on decreasing the urban and rural residential energy-related CO2 emissions, followed by the carbon emission coefficient. However, urbanization increased the urban residential energy-related CO2 emissions but decreased the CO2 emissions in rural regions. Population made marginal and the most stable contribution to increase the residential energy-related CO2 emissions both in urban and rural regions. (3) Overall, the decoupling status showed the weak decoupling (0.1) and expansive negative decoupling (1.21) in urban and rural regions, respectively.

Highlights

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggests that climate change is a great threat for human survival and development owing to the anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions [1,2]
The results demonstrated that energy price had the positive effect on the emission reduction, while population and income played the key role in the growth of the CO2 emissions
Little attention was paid to research the difference of the residential energy-related CO2 emissions between urban and rural areas in the less developed and undeveloped regions

Summary

Introduction

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggests that climate change is a great threat for human survival and development owing to the anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions [1,2]. Its emissions account for approximate one third of the global total emissions [4,5] In this context, China has made commitments and formulated a series of policies to reduce emissions. As reported by a recent study that China’s economic prosperity had been coupled with environmental degradation, and suggested that decoupling economic growth from ecological impact had been central to achieve the national sustainable development [12]. It is necessary and imperative for China to discover a green, low-carbon and sustainable path to coordinate the link between developmental and environmental protection [13]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion