CO2 emissions from China's power sector at the provincial level:Consumption versus production perspectives

Lindner, Soeren, Liu, Zhu, Guan, Dabo, Geng, Yong and Li, Xin (2013) CO2 emissions from China's power sector at the provincial level:Consumption versus production perspectives. Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews, 19. pp. 164-172. ISSN 1364-0321

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Abstract

The Chinese electricity sector plays an important role in domestic CO 2 mitigation efforts due to its large contribution to overall emissions. However, primary energy resources used for electricity generation are not evenly distributed across the country. Such a supply and demand mismatch in reality results in large parts of electricity to be transferred from economically less developed provinces in the west to economic growth centres in the east. A literature review shows that the emissions embodied in electricity transfer within China have not been explicitly studied, although in fact they cause a shift of environmental pollution away from economically well-off provinces to resource-rich, and less developed provinces. Therefore, it is critical for policy makers to address this issue. Under such a circumstance, a bottom-up model is developed to calculate direct CO2 emissions embodied in electricity export and import between Chinese provinces. It helps quantifying emissions from the power sector associated with both production and consumption perspectives and sheds lights on the environmental impact of regional supply and demand mismatch in China. Results show that the difference between consumption and production based CO2 emissions from electricity sector in some provinces were higher than the total CO2 emissions from electricity sector in Netherlands (in the case of Beijing), or as high as the total CO2 emission from France's electricity sector (in the case of Guangdong). Based upon Chinese realities, policy implications and suggestions are made, such as how to set up appropriate emission reduction targets for electricity sector at provincial level, and the inclusion of consumption emissions in designing China's cap-and-trade mechanism. The methodology and findings may be useful for investigation of embodied emissions throughout various regions of the world.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: china,co2 emission,consumption versus production,power sector,renewable energy, sustainability and the environment,sdg 7 - affordable and clean energy,sdg 8 - decent work and economic growth,sdg 12 - responsible consumption and production ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/2100/2105
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Social Sciences > School of International Development
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Centres > Water Security Research Centre
Related URLs:
Depositing User: Pure Connector
Date Deposited: 23 Jun 2016 23:08
Last Modified: 21 Oct 2022 01:20
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/59511
DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2012.10.050

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