Research On Traffic Carbon Emissions Of Urban Residents In Zhengzhou City

As the most active part of global economic activity, the city is the center of the human productionand consumption, contributed around70%of total global CO₂emissions. Traffic sector is acknowledged tobe a siginificant source of the carbon emissions because it accounted for13.1%of the city’s CO₂emission,the value is raising with the resident traffic carbon emissions increasing. Currently, the study about theresident traffic carbon emissions in the domestic is relatively weak, and more focused on country scale andregional scale, ignored the community scale and the family scale. So we need based on the residents familyscale to pay more attention to characteristics and mechanism of residents traffic CO₂emissions by thebottom-up analysis mode.With the urbanization processed, motor vehicles in Zhengzhou city had an exponential growth.As the core city of the Zhongyuan economic zone, Zhengzhou city has an obligation to reduce greenhousegas emissions and develop an ecological civilization.We accomplished the study on the basis of spacetheory of the day-to-day behavior, social hierarchy of the needs, EKC curve and decoupling theory. First ofall, in the macro perspective, we taken the bottom-up method to calculate the residents traffic carbonemissions of Zhengzhou city between2001and2010, analyzed the changes in characteristics and reasons.Then we measured the traffic low-carbon development level of urban residents by decoupling theory.Secondly, we studied the traffic carbon emissions of urban residents from the micro perspective. In otherwords, we designed the questionnaire to receive the travel pattern of urban households, and analyzed thehierarchical structure and spatial variation of traffic carbon emission for urban households by the aid ofArcGIS and SPSS software. Meanwhile, the paper used the multi-level correlation anslysis and multipleregression models to quantitate these variables of traffic carbon emissions of urban households. Finally, thispaper forcast the growth trend of the residents transport carbon emissions based on the baseline scenario, itis urgent to seek the ways to reduction the traffic carbon emission of urban residents. In this paper, wereceived some conclusions:（1） We discussed the characteristics and structural evolution of traffic carbon emissions of urbanresidents in the macro perspective. In2001-2010, traffic carbon emissions of Zhengzhou urban residents increased exponentially, as well as the private car carbon emissions and per captia traffic carbon emissions.Although carbon emissions of buses and taxis increased steadily, their proportion was in rapid decline.Therefor, the composition of carbon emissions of urban residents had experienced a change that from thepattern of three travels is equalization gradually became to the pattern of private car is dominant, bus andtaxis are subordinate position.（2） In the macro perspective, the consumption pattern of urban residents, the organization zoningand road construction, the growth of motor vehicles resulted in the dynamic change of resident trafficcarbon emissions. More specifically, with the increasing in consumer spending and the change of theconsumption patterns, the proportion of residents traffic spending continues to rise, residents traffic spendgrowing promptly. The expanding of Zhengzhou city in three directions to the northwest, northeast,southeast, leaded urban industrial area and residential area to reconstruction on the space and graduallyprolonged daily commuting distance of urban residents. In2001-2010, the car ownership rate of per onehundred motorized vehicles increased quickly, the number of cars of Zhengzhou city showed exponentialrising.（3） The change of traffic low-carbon level of urban residents in Zhengzhou. From2001to2010,the traffic low carbon level of Zhengzhou urban residents is absolutely high carbon exclude to the relativelyhigh carbon in2005. However, the low carbon index of2010was closed to1.2, it means that the trafficlow-carbon level of urban residents began to return to the relatively high carbon mode.（4） In the micro perspective, the differentiation of hierarchical organization and spatialdistribution of the household carbon emissions of urban residents.15%of high-carbon family contributed60%of traffic carbon emissions of urban residents, so the traffic carbon emissions of Zhengzhou residentsconstituted the60/15rule. In the structure, the proportion of public transport carbon emissions to the totalhouseholds carbon emissions declined rapidly as the grade rised, the car is the main strength to classdifferences of traffic carbon emissions of urban households, aslo is the driving force for the traffic carbonemissions of urban residents. On the spatial disribution, the family of high carbon emissions located in thetransition zone where the middle urban and peripheral urban from the northeast to southeast extension. It isreasonable that in the processing of urbanization, the residential and industrial agglomeration in different places for the function division to the heart area, the middle of urban and peripjeral urban areas and the axisexpansion of Zhengzhou city.（5） In the micro perspective, the impact mechanisms of traffic carbon emissions of urbanresidents. Travel tools, travel distance, the family size of population, held a driver’s license persons andannual income of resident family are the variables of the carbon emission growth of public transport. Andthe family size of population, held a driver’s license persons and annual income of resident family have anegatively correlated to public transport carbon emissions. The annual income of resident family, thenumber of private car and the concept of buy car lead to the growth of carbon emissions of resident privatecar.（6） The reduction of traffic carbon emissions of urban residents. The passion of residents on thecycling and walking is a premise for reducing the use frequency of private car and controling traffic carbonemissions. The attitude of residents to the public transport and road layout, as well as the underdevelopedstatus of public transport, is an action guide to reduce carbon emissions. Suitable traffic policy,technological advances, driver’s habits and road conditions are auxiliary measures for reducing transportcarbon emission of urban residents.