System dynamics modelling of urbanization under energy constraints in China

Chaolin Gu,Wei Zhai,Qiwen Cao,Yutong Wu,Xinyue Ye,Weihua Guan,Chong Peng

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-66125-3

Abstract

The rapid urbanization in China has been associated with a growing hunger for energy consumption and steadily-increasing CO2 emissions. In this paper, an integrated system dynamics model composed of four sub-models is developed to simulate the urbanization and energy consumption in China from 1998 to 2050. Three scenarios are provided: accelerated economic development, emission reduction constraint, and low-carbon oriented. The result reveals that rapid economic growth and sufficient energy supply will foster China’s urbanization in all three scenarios. Under the low carbon transition scenario, China’s urbanization rate is expected to reach 76.41% in 2050, both reducing carbon emissions and promoting eco-friendly development. All three scenarios witness a dramatic growth of residential energy consumption and a steady increase of industrial energy consumption. China still has a long way to achieve the low-carbon transition goal. China should promote renewable resources and energy, pursue a low-carbon lifestyle, and reduce energy intensity over the next few decades.

Highlights

The rapid urbanization in China has been associated with a growing hunger for energy consumption and steadily-increasing CO2 emissions
The accelerated economic development scenario (AED) scenario reflects China’s high energy consumption path; the emission reduction constraint scenario (ERC) scenario shows a significant reduction in fossil energy but no other energy policies; the low-carbon oriented development scenario (LOD) scenario is the active adjustment of the energy structure with industrial restructuring through largely increasing non-fossil energy supply while significantly reducing fossil energy (Table 4)
The emerging and developing economies have been witnessing extraordinary paces of urbanization associated with rocketing energy consumption[70]

Summary

Introduction

The rapid urbanization in China has been associated with a growing hunger for energy consumption and steadily-increasing CO2 emissions. Three scenarios are provided: accelerated economic development, emission reduction constraint, and low-carbon oriented. Under the low carbon transition scenario, China’s urbanization rate is expected to reach 76.41% in 2050, both reducing carbon emissions and promoting eco-friendly development. China should promote renewable resources and energy, pursue a low-carbon lifestyle, and reduce energy intensity over the few decades. China's dramatic urbanization and the associated energy demand as well as the pressure of CO2 emitted by such energy consumption is a major global scientific issue since this century[7,8,9]. Dramatic urbanization under energy constraints is challenging for China, which has topped all the countries in population, energy consumption (since 2010), and CO2 emissions (since 2008)[27]. To dynamically predict future urban development trends under various scenarios has very important scientific values for the policy formulation

Methods

Results

Conclusion