A Comparison of Household Carbon Emission Patterns of Urban and Rural China over the 17 Year Period (1995–2011)

Abstract

Abstract:The household sector consumes a large amount of goods and services and is therefore a major source of global carbon emissions. This study aims to analyze per person household carbon emission (HCEs) patterns of urban and rural China over the period from 1995 to 2011. Annual macroeconomic data for the study were obtained from authentic Chinese government sources. Direct HCE estimates for each fossil fuel were obtained using the IPCC's reference approach, and indirect HCEs were calculated by input-output analysis. In 1995, per person HCEs from direct sources for urban and rural China were 0.50 tCO2 and 0.22 tCO2, respectively; by 2011, these values had increased to 0.60 tCO2 and 0.61 tCO2, an increase of 20% and 177.27%, respectively. Similarly, in 1995, per person HCEs from indirect sources for urban and rural China were 0.43 tCO2 and 0.16 tCO2, respectively; by 2011, these values had increased to 1.77 tCO2 and 0.53 tCO2, respectively, an increase of 306% and 235%. The reasons for these differences and the sets of policies required to rectify increasing emissions are discussed. If current trends and practices continue, with a RMB1000 increase in per capita income from 2011 levels, per person HCEs in urban and rural China will increase by 0.119 tCO2 and 0.197 tCO2, respectively. OPEN ACCESSEnergies 2015, 8 10538This result indicates that the sector of society which is most vulnerable will contribute most to China's increasing HCEs. Therefore, while developing energy consumption and emissions reduction policies and programs, principles of fairness and equity need to be followed.

Research on a Household Dual Heat Source Heat Pump Water Heater with Preheater Based on ASPEN PLUS

“…Along with the increasingly serious environmental pollution and scarce resources, people have paid more and more attention to energy conservation and emissions reduction [1,2]. A heat pump (HP) can use some amount of external power to move thermal energy from a heat source (air, wastewater, ground, underground water, etc.)…”

Comparing Urban and Rural Household CO2 Emissions—Case from China’s Four Megacities: Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing

“…PHCEs in our study and other studies are compared in Table 3. PHCEs in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing were larger than the national average household footprint shown by Wiedenhofer et al [65], Fan et al [66], and Qu et al [67], but much smaller than the U.S. [68] and European countries [18,69,70]. Compared to the results of Tian et al [71] and Fry et al [72], Beijing's total PHCEs in our results were 31.56% and 29.02% smaller, respectively, due to different research methods and data sources.…”

Spatial Variations and Determinants of Per Capita Household CO2 Emissions (PHCEs) in China

“…Two variables were chosen to represent urbanization and population density, which in previous studies have been shown to influence PHCEs [8][9][10][11]. Population per km 2 (PD) was chosen to represent the average population density of a province.…”

“…For example, Sichuan has a relatively high population density, while it has a moderate rate of urbanization. A final demographic variable that has been shown to influence PHCEs is average household size (HS) [8][9][10][11]. Per capita income (PI) was chosen as a metric of economic affluence [21], since personal income is likely to have the most direct impact on PHCEs, relative to other measures such as per capita GDP.…”

“…While many of these emissions can be attributed to household energy usage, household consumption will account for a rising portion of emissions in the coming decades as living standards improve [4][5][6]. Early evaluations of carbon emission reduction efforts focused on the industrial sector and evaluated CO 2 emissions from fossil fuels, but, recently, researchers have turned to studies of CO 2 emissions from household consumption [4,[6][7][8][9][10][11], with per capita household CO 2 emissions (PHCEs) being an important point for climate change mitigation efforts in the future [12].…”