Emission Inventories of Carbon-containing Greenhouse Gases in China and Technological Measures for Their Abatement

Abstract

The report summarizes surveys on carbon inventories and initiatives on sustainable carbon cycling taken by the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, where the authors work/worked. The first part of the report, which appeared in the preceding issue of this journal, deals with the concept of sustainable carbon cycling, the historic evolution of carbon cycling processes in China, carbon pool enhancement, value addition, carbon sequestration and carbon balance. This very paper, as the second part of the report, covers the results of carbon dynamics modeling, emission inventories of various carbon-containing greenhouse gases and their potential abatement measures.     

Evolutionof Sustainable Carbon Cycling Processes in China

This report summarizes the surveys on carbon inventories and initiatives on sustainable carbon cycling taken by RCEES. The first part of this report deals with the concept of sustainable carbon cycling, the historical evolution of carbon cycling processes in China, carbon pool enhancement, value addition, carbon sequestration and carbon balance. The second part covers the modeling of carbon dynamics, emission inventories of various carbon containing greenhouse gases and their potential abatement measures.     

Emission Inventories of Carbon-containing Greenhouse Gases in and Technological Measures for Their Abatement

The report summarizes surveys on carbon inventories and initiatives on sustainable carbon cycling taken by the Research Center for EcoEnvironmental Sciences, where the authors work/worked. The first part of the report, which appeared in the preceding issue of this journal, deals with the concept of sustainable carbon cycling, the historic evolution of carbon cycling processes in China, carbon pool enhancement, value addition,carbon sequestration and carbon balance. This very paper, as the second part of the report, covers the results of carbon dynamics modeling, emission inventories of various carbon-containing greenhouse gases and their potential abatement measures.     

Emission Inventories of Carbon-containing Greenhouse Gases in China and Technological Measures for Their Abatement

The report summarizes surveys on carbon inventories and initiatives on sustainable carbon cycling taken by the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, where the authors work/worked. The first part of the report, which appeared in the preceding issue of this journal, deals with the concept of sustainable carbon cycling, the historic evolution of carbon cycling processes in China, carbon pool enhancement, value addition, carbon sequestration and carbon balance. This very paper, as the second part of the report, covers the results of carbon dynamics modeling, emission inventories of various carbon-containing greenhouse gases and their potential abatement measures.     

IPCC框架下木质林产品碳储核算研究进展:方法选择及关联利益

木质林产品的碳储功能可有效降低大气中二氧化碳的浓度,其碳储量核算已被纳入气候变化缔约国温室气体清单报告,各国基于CBDR原则对木质林产品的碳储计量及贸易流动核算方法学在国家层面的争议及协调,关系到未来在气候变化谈判中的减排责任分配及利益分享。本文首先概括了IPCC历次会议关联木质林产品碳储核算议题及谈判进程,纵向梳理了碳储计量问题的研究进展。其次,对比不同国家和地区关于核算方法的应用及争议,总结不同核算方法在各国间的适用情况及其关联利益。最后,从清单报告和国际贸易角度分析了生产法与储量变化法对林产品碳储计量的不同影响,归纳了不同角度下两种核算方法的适用属性。研究表明:1缔约国附件Ⅰ国家在第二协议期内报告本国木质林产品的碳储量及其变化,在假设本国木质林产品碳储贡献不为零时采用生产法核算碳储量,核算源于本国采伐木的产品碳收支已成为当前缔约国履行气候责任的基本要求;2从清单报告的角度,缔约国基于森林管理参考水平报告碳储量,生产法区别森林管理活动并核算源于可持续森林经营管理的木质林产品碳储量,符合报告的要求;3从国际贸易角度,对于中国等涉及林产品国际贸易的净进口国,储量变化法因考虑到进出口的碳计量,以储量变化法核算碳储量对中国等林产品贸易大国更具优势。     

The Status Quo and Developing Trend Analysis of Global Carbon Finance

Abstract

This paper gives a systematic view of the new trends of global carbon finance innovation under the challenge of global climate change and in the process of transition to achieve economic growth from “high carbon” to ‘low carbon”, covering the following aspects: the structure, status quo and developing trend of global carbon market. The paper discusses the innovation in financial organization and service systems and governments’ overall guidance and policy support, and draws the conclusion that the world is undergoing massive changes with governments actively responding to carbon finance to embrace the tremendous opportunities for clean energy and climate change in financial industry. To seize the opportunity, a complete and overall carbon finance system of China should be put in the top of the agenda. Given the current tasks of energy conservation and pollution reduction and the growing demand for capital input, China needs to construct an clear of policy guidance, a diversified financia service system, and a multi-approach carbon finance system to intensify and widen the participation of financial industry, to expand financing channels for sustainable economy and spread risks, and finally, work out an inexpensive solution to the realization of China’s low carbon target.     

The Belt and Road Initiative and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: seeking linkages for global environmental governance

ABSTRACT

Global environmental cooperation serves as an important part in the Chinese ideal of building a Community with a Shared Future for all Human Beings. The report of 19th CPC National Congress indicates that China is committed to proactive mitigation under the Paris Agreement and further participating in global environmental governance under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and both of which are largely integrated to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). BRI are also closely linked with South–South environmental and climate cooperation proposed by China from previous UN summits. Based on shared ideas, intersected agendas, and compatible governance approaches, BRI and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development grow increasingly relevant and they might form synergies based on increasingly interactive relations. In sum, seeking and intensifying the linkages between BRI and 2030 sustainable development goals (SDGs) could address global environmental governance deficits and enhance cooperation among nations.     

Recovery and characterisation of carbon fibres from waste CFRP using supercritical n-butanol

ABSTRACT

The high-performance carbon fibres can be recycled from waste carbon fibre/epoxy resin composites by supercritical n-butanol. Recycling experiment designed by response surface method was used to investigate quantitative relation between degradation rate of epoxy resin and process parameters. Thus, the optimum process parameters could be obtained, and effects of process parameters and layers on degradation rate and mechanical performance of the recycled carbon fibres were analysed. The tensile strength of the recycled carbon fibre under the optimum process parameters was 94.53% of that of the original carbon fibre, tensile modulus was 93.57% of that of the original carbon fibre and interfacial shear strength was 90% of that of the original carbon fibre.     

Carbon Embodied in International Trade of China and Its Emission Responsibility

Abstract

Carbon emissions embodied in international trade of China during 1997–2007 are accounted by input–output method based on Chinese input–output table and global trade analysis project database. It is revealed that carbon emissions embodied in imports and exports both increased during 1997–2007, but carbon emissions embodied in exports are greater than those embodied in imports, China is a net export nation in embodied carbon. The net exports of embodied carbon account for about 10.82% of the total carbon emissions in 1997, dropped to 7.15% in 2002, increased to 13.13% in 2006, and slightly dropped to 12.64% in 2007. Low-end position of international industry division is an objective factor of being a net exporter of embodied carbon for China, and usage of a large amount of obsolete energy-using equipments wasted much energy and increased carbon emissions embodied in exports. Importers should take more responsibilities for carbon emissions embodied in trade, and China should take a certain responsibility for unreasonable energy dissipations too.     

An Empirical Study on the Environmental Kuznets Curve for China’s Carbon Emissions: Based on Provincial Panel Data

Abstract

Based on the Environmental Kuznets Curve theory, the authors choose provincial panel data of China in 1990–2007 and adopt panel unit root and co-integration testing method to study whether there is Environmental Kuznets Curve for China’s carbon emissions. The research results show that: carbon emissions per capita of the eastern region and the central region of China fit into Environmental Kuznets Curve, but that of the western region does not. On this basis, the authors carry out scenario analysis on the occurrence time of the inflection point of carbon emissions per capita of different regions, and describe a specific time path.     

How does government environmental regulation “unlock” carbon emission effect?—evidence from China

ABSTRACT

The disordered emission of carbon dioxide is an important sign of market failure, making it a must to “unlock” the high emission effect of carbon dioxide by effective means. From the perspective of technological innovation, on the basis of the data of time series from 1985 to 2014 in Beijing, China, this article empirically analyzed the relationship between environmental regulation and carbon emissions through VAR model, impulse response function, and variance decomposition. It is concluded that in a short term, environmental regulation has an inhibitory effect on carbon emissions and technological innovation and has a positive effect on industrial structure. In a long term, environmental regulation can enhance the technological innovation and reduce the effect of carbon emissions, which may even eliminate it. Generally, environmental regulation and technological innovation have a greater impact on carbon dioxide emissions, while the industrial structure has a relatively small effect. Finally, the targeted countermeasures and suggestions are put forward.     

Cross-country income disparity and its effect on carbon emissions

This study is motivated by the interesting relationship between the income Kuznets curve and the carbon Kuznets curve.This paper focuses on the interaction effects of income distribution and income per capita on CO₂ emissions using country group panel data over the period of 1980 to 2006 by employing fixed effects（FE）,random effects（RE）and feasible generalized least squares（FGLS）estimation methods.The main findings are as follows.（1）There exists an inverted-U relationship between CO₂ emissions per capita and income per capita in all sample countries and high-income groups.（2）The cross-country income disparity has a negative effect on the average level of CO₂ emissions but a positive effect on the aggregate income elasticity of CO₂ emissions.（3）This negative effect of income disparity on the average level of CO₂emissions decreases along with the growth of per capita income.Thus,economic growth contributes to the reduction of this negative impact.     

Soil management practices for sustainable agro-ecosystems

A doubling of the global food demand projected for the next 50 years poses a huge challenge for the sustainability of both food production and global and local environments. Today’s agricultural technologies may be increasing productivity to meet world food demand, but they may also be threatening agricultural ecosystems. For the global environment, agricultural systems provide both sources and sinks of greenhouse gases (GHGs), which include carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), and nitrous oxide (N₂O). This paper addresses the importance of soil organic carbon (SOC) for agro-ecosystems and GHG uptake and emission in agriculture, especially SOC changes associated with soil management. Soil management strategies have great potential to contribute to carbon sequestration, since the carbon sink capacity of the world’s agricultural and degraded soil is 50–66% of the historic carbon loss of 42–72 Pg (1 Pg=10¹⁵ g), although the actual carbon storage in cultivated soil may be smaller if climate changes lead to increasing mineralization. The importance of SOC in agricultural soil is, however, not controversial, as SOC helps to sustain soil fertility and conserve soil and water quality, and organic carbon compounds play a variety of roles in the nutrient, water, and biological cycles. No-tillage practices, cover crop management, and manure application are recommended to enhance SOC storage and to contribute to sustainable food production, which also improves soil quality. SOC sequestration could be increased at the expense of increasing the amount of non-CO₂ GHG emissions; however, soil testing, synchronized fertilization techniques, and optimum water control for flooding paddy fields, among other things, can reduce these emissions. Since increasing SOC may also be able to mitigate some local environmental problems, it will be necessary to have integrated soil management practices that are compatible with increasing SOM management and controlling soil residual nutrients. Cover crops would be a critical tool for sustainable soil management because they can scavenge soil residual nitrogen and their ecological functions can be utilized to establish an optimal nitrogen cycle. In addition to developing soil management strategies for sustainable agro-ecosystems, some political and social approaches will be needed, based on a common understanding that soil and agro-ecosystems are essential for a sustainable society.     

Rural-urban Migration,Rural Household Income and Sustainable Development in Rural Areas of China

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to investigate the relationships among rural-urban migration, rural household income and sustainable development in rural areas of China. The typical case study is done and 288 questionnaires are collected from five villages in Hebei and Guangxi provinces, China. The migration and remittance status, household income and sustainable development of rural areas are analyzed on the basis of questionnaires. Rural-urban migration is becoming a part of routine life in rural areas. And remittance is an important component in rural household income. Rural-urban migration increases the arable land area per labor, which releases the tight human-land relationship in villages. In total, the migration increases the rural household income and accelerates the sustainable development of rural areas.     

Improving performance of eco-industrial parks

Abstract

Industrial Ecology hypothesises that networks of industries designed to be analogous to the structure and properties of food webs may approach a similarly sustainable and efficient state. Although ecology is the metaphor for designing Eco-Industrial Parks (EIPs), prior research has shown that EIPs are inferior in performance compared to natural ecosystems. One EIP design approach is to enlarge EIPs by combining two or more synergistic networks to create a larger, and hopefully more successful, synergistic mega-network. A quantitative analysis using structural ecosystem metrics is presented in this paper in order to test the potential of this approach. The findings indicate that merely enlarging EIPs by significant amounts may not be the best strategy for improving performance, but that special attention should be placed on the inclusion of key actors like agriculture that act like detritivores and promote more intense internal cycling.     

The Concept and Theoretical Implications of Carbon Emissions Rights Based on Individual Equity

Abstract

Climate change has become a hot topic in international environmental negotiations. For post-Kyoto international climate regime negotiations, many countries have proposed a variety of frameworks to share the emission reduction responsibilities and allocate carbon emission rights, and have tried to quantify the emission reduction obligations of all countries based on the perspectives of international equity and individual equity. In this paper, the authors have distinguished the concepts of carbon emissions rights based on these two perspectives respectively, have analyzed the relationship between carbon emissions per capita and economic development, and have calculated and compared the proportion of cumulative emissions per capita of different countries in history and future, and then authors conclude that emission reduction obligations should be allocated based on each country’s conditions, including historical emissions, development stage, and future demands. Developed countries should take the initiative to significantly reduce their emissions because they have already accomplished their industrialization process. However, developing countries are still in the process of industrialization, which requires more emission rights to meet their development needs. For China, the concept of carbon emissions based on individual equity can be used as a theoretical tool for the allocating the international carbon emissions rights.     

The Factor Decomposition on Carbon Emission of China — Based on LMDI Decomposition Technology

Abstract

Carbon emission is the current hot issue of global concern. How to assess various contributing factors for carbon emission is of great importance to find out the key factors and promote carbon emission reduction. In this paper, the author constructs an identical equation for carbon emission, based on the economic aggregate, the economic structure, the efficiency of energy utilization, the structure of energy consumption, and the coefficient of carbon emission; by applying to LMDI decomposition technology, the author analyzes the carbon emission of China from 1995 to 2007 at industrial level and regional level. The results show that the expansion of economic aggregate is the main reason for China’ s rapidly increasing carbon emission and the increase of energy utilization efficiency is the key factor that can hold back the increase of carbon emission. In addition, the change of industrial structure or regional structure and the change of traditional energy structure have limited influence on the carbon emission, and their potentials have not yet been exploited. At the end of this paper, the author proposes the efforts that China should make to reduce carbon emission.     

Environmental Capital,Negative Externality and Carbon Finance Innovation

Abstract

In the context of global climate change, the internalization of negative externality, which is brought about by the traditional mode of economic growth, has become an inevitable choice. In order to achieve the internalization, it is necessary to make innovations on the market mechanism and system, find the value of environmental capital, establish a new mode of economic growth based on environmental capital, and then transform the environmental capital, an exogenous factor of economic growth, into an endogenous factor. Of this, the key of market mechanism and system innovation is the financial innovation that is based on environmental capital and negative externality; the government defines the initial property right of environmental resources and establishes environment energy trading market, so as to guide enterprises to trade environmental resources (represented by carbon emission permit trading) based on the Clean Development Mechanism, and to vigorously develop environmental finance and carbon finance.     

Simulation planning of power supply capacity: an approach to optimal industrial microgrid operation with carbon emission permits

ABSTRACT

Microgrids integrated with distributed generation provide energy intensive enterprises (EIEs) with a solution to cut down their total system costs. However, unreasonable capacity allocation of power supply in industrial microgrid may result in capacity shortage or excess, thus leading to uneconomical solutions. Considering carbon emission permits and renewable energy access on demand side, this paper analyses and evaluates the long-term impacts of power supply capacity on economic benefits and carbon emission. The power suppliers consist of industrial self-generation, wind power generation and power grid. A HOMER software based industrial microgrid model is designed, and time series simulation of the model for a cycle of 10 years is performed to provide numerical analysis. The simulation results with sensitivity analysis show that optimal capacity planning of power supply can lead to considerable economical and ecological benefits under carbon emission permits; besides, it can also be conducive to peak load shedding for power grid.     

Replacing car trips by increasing bike and public transport in the greater Barcelona metropolitan area: A health impact assessment study

ObjectiveEstimate the health risks and benefits of mode shifts from car to cycling and public transport in the metropolitan area of Barcelona, Spain.MethodsWe conducted a health impact assessment (HIA), creating 8 different scenarios on the replacement of short and long car trips, by public transport or/and bike. The primary outcome measure was all-cause mortality and change in life expectancy related to two different assessments: A) the exposure of travellers to physical activity, air pollution to particulate matter < 2.5 μm (PM2.5), and road traffic fatality; and B) the exposure of general population to PM2.5, modelling by Barcelona Air-Dispersion Model. The secondary outcome was a change in emissions of carbon dioxide.ResultsThe annual health impact of a shift of 40% of the car trips, starting and ending in Barcelona City, to cycling (n = 141,690) would be for the travellers who shift modes 1.15 additional deaths from air pollution, 0.17 additional deaths from road traffic fatality and 67.46 deaths avoided from physical activity resulting in a total of 66.12 deaths avoided. Fewer deaths would be avoided annually if half of the replaced trips were shifted to public transport (43.76 deaths). The annual health impact in the Barcelona City general population (n = 1,630,494) of the 40% reduction in car trips would be 10.03 deaths avoided due to the reduction of 0.64% in exposure to PM2.5. The deaths (including travellers and general population) avoided in Barcelona City therefore would be 76.15 annually. Further health benefits would be obtained with a shift of 40% of the car trips from the Greater Barcelona Metropolitan which either start or end in Barcelona City to public transport (40.15 deaths avoided) or public transport and cycling (98.50 deaths avoided).The carbon dioxide reduction for shifting from car to other modes of transport (bike and public transport) in Barcelona metropolitan area was estimated to be 203,251 t/CO₂ emissions per year.ConclusionsInterventions to reduce car use and increase cycling and the use of public transport in metropolitan areas, like Barcelona, can produce health benefits for travellers and for the general population of the city. Also these interventions help to reduce green house gas emissions.