No abstract

Research on the driving forces of the change of CO2 emissions intensity inequality in China could provide a scientific basis for formulating sound, fair, and efficient regional carbon emission abatement strategies.This study adopted the Theil index to measure the inequality in energy-related CO2 emissions intensity in China during 2005-2015, and conducted source decomposition focusing on geographical regions, economic sectors, energy types, and explanatory factor decomposition of the inequality. The results show that China's CO2 emissions intensity gradually decreased from 2005 to 2015, but the provincial gap continued to expand. From a regional perspective, the inequality in CO2 emissions intensity is mainly found within China's northeastern, eastern, central, and western regions. Besides, the ever-expanding internal differences of CO2 emissions intensity within the eastern and the western regions increasingly became the main driver of the inequality enhancement.The industrial sector and coal were respectively the major sources of CO2 emissions intensity inequality in terms of economic sectors and energy sources, which were also the key drivers of the intensity inequality exacerbation.With regard to the determinants, the provincial differences in CO2 emissions intensity were mainly dominated by the technological development level, followed by the industrial structure and energy structure. Among them, the widening provincial differences in technology level and energy structure enhanced the inequality in CO2 emissions intensity, and the contribution of technology level was much larger than that of energy structure. The narrowing disparity among provinces in the industrial structure, however, promoted the reduction of the provincial CO2 emissions intensity inequality in China. The research results can provide a scientific basis for the formulation of China's regional emission reduction strategy.

No abstract

With less than ten years left to meet its pledge to peak carbon dioxide emissions (peak emissions hereafter) by 2030, China has entered a critical emissions reduction stage. How to meet this commitment in a context in which GDP per capita will double from 2020 by 2035 is a major decision-making issue for the Chinese government and people and one which warrants further study. To reveal the relationships between the GDP growth rate, the rate of decrease of carbon intensity and the time to reach peak emissions, this study translates the question as to "when China's carbon emissions peak will occur" into "how can one control the rate of carbon intensity decrease at a given GDP growth rate". In the light of the results of a random forest algorithm used to identify and project the key drivers of carbon intensity in China, a mathematical model was developed to simulate different scenarios relating to decreases in carbon intensity. The date at which Chinese carbon emissions will peak is predicted by comparing the rate of decrease of carbon intensity with the GDP growth rate. The results show that the time to peak emissions depends on the relationship between the rate of decrease of carbon intensity and the GDP growth rate, where the former depends mainly on the energy structure and policy. If China's annual GDP growth rate were 5.0% during the 15th Five-Year Plan, and if the share of non-fossil energy in total energy consumption were 23.0% or above, China's carbon emissions will peak before 2030. If the share of non-fossil fuels were 20.0% or less, China might not be able to reach its 2030 target. In this latter case an acceleration in the pace of energy restructuring would be required to reach peak emissions before 2030. The projected peak emissions scenarios suggest that the carbon peak will occur between 2025 to 2029, with average peak emissions of 11.2 billion tons and a distribution ranging from a minimum of 10.5 billion and a maximum of 11.9 billion tons. If the GDP growth rate were 4.5%, 5.5% or 6.0% during the 15th Five-year Plan, the share of non-fossil energy must reach 23.0%, 25.0% or 27.0%, respectively, to ensure that emissions peak by 2030. The results of this study provide a series of reference points for China's pursuit of feasible pathways to peak carbon emissions by 2030.