Research On Regional Differences Of Cities’ Low-carbon Level In Guangdong Province

Global Climate change is a very serious problem of the environment and development faced by the mankind, Low carbon development has become the consensus ofthe international community to combating climate change, many countries, includingChina,make their own carbon reduction commitment to the international communitysuccessively. The city is a concentration area of human activities, and it is nearly70%of carbon emissions come from the city in the history, Therefore, constructionlow carbon cities is the key to meet our targets for the reduction of carbon emissions.Against this background, the "low-carbon city" emerged, and it become the heat issuein Academic circles at home and abroad. Guangdong province is one of the mosteconomically advanced provinces in China, which industrialization and urbanizationlranked the forefront, but it is also a high carbon emissions province, and its carbonemission reduction task is very difficult, Therefore, research of low-carbon citydevelopment in guangdong province is of great significance. By evaluating the low-carbon level of the21cities in Guangdong and analyzing regional difference，thispaper make those cities know their low carbon development status, existing problemstimely and accurately，and provide a scientific theory reference and basis for thosecities to make low-carbon development strategy in the future.On the basis of combing literature about low-carbon city at home and abroad,the author defines the connotation of low carbon city, establishes a set of evaluationindex system of low-carbon city from four dimensions: low-carbon foundation,low-carbon production, low-carbon consumption and low-carbon environment.Subsequently, this article choose Analytic Hierarchy Process and Entropy method todesign two assessment programmes, in which subjective and objective analysis arecombined. And then analyzing the regional differences of low-carbon development inGuangdong province both from time dimension and spatial dimension based on SPSSand ArcGIS software platform. At last,21cities in Guangdong province are classified through the system clustering method and the "low carbon-economy"combinedmethod, aiming at the type Features, the shortage and the Effect Factors of low carbondevelopment are pointed out respectively. The conclusions of this study are asfollows:(1)The low carbon development level of Most cities in Guangdong is not veryhigh from2001to2011,most are at the stage of high carbon and medium-high carbonlevels.However, Those cities’ low carbon development level are improvedcontinuously,the situation of low carbon development in GuangdongProvince is good.(2)As for the21cities in Guangdong, the otherness of low carbon developmentamong them is big. But in recent years, the comprehensive index gap of those cities isshrinking.(3)In terms of time dimension, besides shenzhen has been ranks first from2001to2011, other cities have different levels of volatility in comprehensive lever. The bigmovers among those cities are Dongguang and Shantou, Chaozhou’ retrogression ismost serious. On the other four dimensions, most cities’ranking change is not big, butthere are also a few cities change fast.The city whose change bigest on low-carbonfoundation dimension is Qingyuan, on low-carbon production dimension is Huizhou,on low-carbon consumption dimension is Heyuan, on low-carbon environmentdimension is Zhuhai.Qingyuan and Heyuan are make a huge step forward, butHuizhou and Zhuhai’ Back are very serious.(4) In terms of spatial distribution pattern, most of high value areas oflow-carbon comprehensive lever, low-carbon foundation dimension and low-carbonproduction dimension are clustered in economically developed Pearl River Deltaregion.while the scores of low-carbon consumption and low-carbon environment inunderdeveloped areas, such as northern Guangdong, eastern Guangdong and westernGuangdong, is generally high.(5) Basing four dimension scores classification method, the21cities inGuangdong are classified as four categories: the leaders, the challengers, thecatch-chasing and the late comers.the leaders and the challengers are developed, Themain areas of energy conservation and emission reduction is consumptionfield, for example construction and living. They should be pay attention to the development ofthe construction of low-carbon environment in the future. The catch-chasing and thelatecomers’ Industrial structure are not advanced, and their economic and technologyare relatively backward, Both the development of economy and efficient utilization ofenergy and resources should they pay attention to in the future.(6)But basing the "low carbon-economy"combined classification method, thereare six different types of low-carbon cities: high-high, medium-high, medium-medium,medium-low, low-medium and low-low. The high-high must pay attention to thespillover of economic and technology and lead to the development of surroundingareas. The medium-high and low-medium are the focus in energy conservation andemission reduction, they have to accelerate the transformation of the pattern ofeconomic development. The type of medium-low is a pseudo low carbon type, withthe expanding of economic scale, the low carbon level is might drop. Though themiddle-middle and low-low type realized positive correlation between low carbondevelopment and economic development but their economic underdevelopment, theirindustrial structure is not advanced, and they lagging in science and technology. Theyshould to promote the expansion of economic scale and to realize the intensive way ofeconomic increasing.