Influencing Factors And Peak Forecast Of Carbon Emissions In China’s Megacities

In response to global warming,China,as the world’s largest carbon dioxide emitter,promises to peak carbon dioxide emissions around 2030.Some cities,including megacities,also announces that they would reach the peak emissions before 2030.City-level carbon peaking is a necessary condition for achieving China’s carbon peaking target.The analysis of the influencing factors of urban carbon emissions and the peaking forecasting research can provide ideas for formulating a clear peaking roadmap,and it has become one of the key points of research by domestic and foreign scholars.China’s megacities are at the forefront in terms of development,and their carbon emissions are far greater than other cities.The characteristics of carbon emission factor analysis and peaking research are more prominent.The research results can guide them to achieve peaking as soon as possible,but also for other cities.Urban carbon emission reduction has a guiding role.This study aims to explore the impact mechanism of carbon emission factors in six Chinese megacities,Beijing,Shanghai,Guangzhou,Shenzhen,Tianjin and Chongqing,and predict carbon peaks under the combined scenarios.First,on the basis of the calculation results of carbon dioxide emissions,the threshold-STIRPAT model is used to add three basic carbon emission driving factors:permanent population,resident wealth and technical level,to verify whether technical level has a staged impact on urban carbon emissions,And then analyze the influencing factors of carbon emissions.Secondly,in the scenario analysis,the three intensity change rates of each carbon emission driving factor are set according to the development status of each city and future planning,and they are arranged and combined into 27 combined scenarios to more comprehensively and carefully predict the carbon emissions of six megacities.Emissions reach peak results.The results show:(1)Driving force for carbon dioxide emission reduction.Population,GDP per capita,and energy intensity have a positive effect on the carbon emissions of mega cities.Although the population effect is the largest,followed by energy intensity,and the per capita GDP is the smallest,according to the actual development of the city,energy intensity is the main driving force for the city’s carbon emission reduction and the early realization of its peak.(2)Non-linear influence of energy intensity.Taking 403.43kg as the boundary value,the impact of energy intensity on carbon dioxide emissions in mega-cities shows phase changes.When it is lower than 403.43kg,energy intensity reduction can more effectively suppress urban carbon emissions.(3)Prediction results of combined carbon peak scenarios for six megacities.Beijing,Shanghai,and Chongqing have reached their peaks under high energy intensity decline scenarios;Tianjin,Guangzhou and Shenzhen,except for the most relaxed high-high-high scenarios,will reach their peaks before 2030.If energy intensity declines at a moderate rate,the carbon emissions of the six megacities cannot be guaranteed to peak before 2030.If energy intensity declines at a low rate,none of the six megacities will reach their peak before 2030.All in all,cities are planning and controlling the variables of carbon emission factors,especially focusing on increasing control and development space in terms of technical factors of energy intensity.It is extremely important for cities to achieve peak carbon emissions before 2030,or even before 2025.possible.This article is helpful to clarify the impact mechanism and the possibility of peaking carbon emissions in mega-cities,it is of reference significance for other cities to achieve carbon emissions peaking as soon as possible,and provides feasible research ideas for the country to achieve carbon peaking targets.Compared with the existing research,this article has made the following innovations from the research methods and research objects:(1)For the first time,the threshold-STIRPAT model is applied to the carbon emission research at the city level.From the perspective of energy intensity,this paper constructs a threshold-STIRPAT model with energy intensity as the threshold.It first verifies that energy intensity has a phased effect on the carbon emissions of megacities,and then studies the mechanism of urban carbon emissions and compares its driving effects.(2)Predict the peak carbon emissions of China’s six megacities based on 27 combination scenarios.According to the development status of each city and future planning,this paper sets the rate of change of the driving factors of urban carbon emissions to three intensities(high,medium and low),and considers all possible combinations.A total of 27 combination scenarios are established.The development of each city provides a more comprehensive scenario consideration.