Characteristics Of Carbon Emission And Potential Of Emission Reduction In Shaanxi Province

Global climate change is one of the most significant environmentalproblems the humanity face，and China is the largest carbon emission factoryworldwide.Low-carbon development is not only the Chinese government’sresponse to the growing international pressure of reducingemission，but also aninherent requirement of the transformation of economic growth mode. InAugust2010， the National Development and Reform Commission officiallaunched low-carbon pilot work. Based on the accumulation of the work of thepilot provinces and cities on low-carbon development， and therepresentativeness in China，finally five provinces and eight cities were listedas the low carbon pilot provinces and cities，including Shaanxi Province.Shaanxi province has the typicality on the development of low-carbon economyin China，for the reason that Shaanxi province is an undeveloped energyprovince which is environmental fragile.In this paper，carbon emission from2001to2010in Shaanxi Province werecalculated using the method of “Guidelines of Provincial Greenhouse Gas List”，and the carbon emission，per capita carbon emission，carbon emission intensityand carbon emission differencesof China’s first batch of pilot provinces weresummed up. Since the terminal energy consumption was concentrated in theindustrial sector and citizens living，especially carbon emission characteristicsof the36industrial departments were analyzed with the LMDI method，and theimpact of the citizens living behavior in Shaanxi province on carbon dioxideemission with the CLA method. Finally，through STIRPAT model and ridgeregression method，nine scenarios were set to predict the carbon emission from2011to2025in Shaanxi Province.The industrial restructuring and adjustmentof energy structure of carbon emission reduction potential were also estimated.It is found that:(1) from2001to2010，carbon dioxide emission had beengrowing in Shaanxi province. Between2006and2010，carbon emission inShaanxiwasrelatively less，only more than Yunnan province. However，the percapita carbon emission was higher，just afterLiaoning province. Carbon intensity of Shaanxi province was in decline， just below the undeveloped Yunnanprovince.(2) From2006to2010，the added value of industry effect and energyefficiency effect of Shaanxi roledthe carbon emission change significantly，andthe second industry had the highest contribution rate.(3) To slow CO2emissiongrowth of Shaanxi province，it should be focused on the industrial sector，especially thefive departments including“electricity，heat production and supplyindustry”，“Non-ferrous metal smelting and rolling processing industry”，“Non-metallic mineral products industry”，“oil processing，coking and nuclearfuel processing industry” and “Chemical raw materials and chemical productsmanufacturing industry”.(4) Urban residents living behavior caused moreindirect emission than the direct emission，and rural residents life behaviorcaused more direct emission than the indirect emission.(5) It was indicated thatkeeping the population，economy，urbanization of moderate development，speeding up the adjustment of industrial structure，promoting technologicalprogress and optimizing energy consumption structure，was an effective way toachieve a low carbon economy and society development in Shaanxi.