Temporal Evolution and Influencing Factors of Energy Consumption and Related Carbon Emissions from the Perspective of Industrialization and Urbanization in Shanghai, China

Abstract

Improvements of manufacturability and living standard driven by industrialization and urbanization typically cause a spike in total energy consumption (TEC) and related carbon emissions (TCEM). However, there have been few comparative studies to include industrial and residential energy consumption (IEC and REC, respectively) and related carbon emissions (ICEM and RCEM, respectively). Since China is a major emerging industrial country wherein urbanization is still ongoing, the present study was conducted in an attempt to analyze the temporal evolution of China’s continued energy consumption and related carbon emissions regarding both industrialization and urbanization. The influencing factors of TCEM, RCEM and ICEM are determined via the log-mean divisia index (LMDI) model. The results showed that both TEC and TCEM gradually increased (apart from a slight decrease in 2014); REC and RCEM increased steadily with no sharp peak; while IEC and ICEM declined sharply. TCEM was positively affected by economic output, consumption level, and population size; the influence of consumption level became more and more significant. Per capita GDP and per capita expenditure were the most significant driving factors for RCEM, while industrial added value (IAV) was the main driving factor for ICEM. The temporal evolution and influencing factors of energy consumption and carbon emissions had stage-related characteristics in accordance with Shanghai’s three stages of development. The Shanghai case study provided a comprehensive understanding of energy consumption and related carbon emissions from the dual perspective of industrialization and urbanization.

Strategy of Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction in Residential Building Sector: A Case Study of Jiangsu Province, China

“…Te positive impact of the average number of persons per household on REC is also found in other studies [53,[79][80][81][82]. Population growth will increase the demand for energy in the residential sector, and more residents consume more energy in daily life.…”

Spatial Association and Effect Evaluation of CO2 Emission in the Chengdu-Chongqing Urban Agglomeration: Quantitative Evidence from Social Network Analysis

“…Some have focused on the evaluation of CO 2 emissions in manufacturing [7], transportation [8,9], households [10,11], and buildings [12,13], and have found that these sectors are the main sources of CO 2 emission in urban areas. On the other hand, some scholars have suggested that the driving forces of urban CO 2 emission include population [14], the economy [15][16][17], technology [18][19][20], energy structure [21], urbanization [22], and spatial patterns [23,24], and have achieved many valuable conclusions. For example, the growing urban population and changing age structure exert positive effects on city-level emissions, while the downsizing of families and expansion of the migrant urban population fuel emissions [25]; growth in economic activity is the most fundamental contributor to the rising city-level emissions [26,27]; advancing technologies, in particular, breakthroughs in energy are the major means of lowering emissions [28] and rising emissions could be curbed by the adjustment of industrial structure and energy consumption patterns [29][30][31].…”