Study On Carbon Emission Characteristics And Forecast In Shanghai

In the past decades, countries around the world have made a series of efforts to combat climate change, and global activities and institutional exchanges will continue to advance in the future. Whether a city can walk in the forefront of the world in the coming decades, depends largely on the resilience to low-carbon era. The premise of energy saving and emission reduction is scientific accounting of regional carbon emission sources and quantitative calculations.This paper takes Shanghai as the object of study. Based on the Statistical Yearbook of Shanghai city over the last decade(2003-2012), and on the basis of basic theory overview and review of the literature, carbon emissions model for this article was selected and improved. Carbon emissions in Shanghai was comprehensively calculated and estimated in terms of carbon sources and carbon sinks, and instrumental factors were selected to analyze and evaluate carbon emissions characteristics of Shanghai from time angle; and from geography angle, carbon emission efficiency targets of two provinces and one municipality of Yangtze River Delta was compared to indicate characteristics of carbon emission in Shanghai; Ridge Regression functions, MATLAB computational tools and STIRPAT model were used to study the effects of population, wealth factors, energy strctures and technological factors on energy activities related carbon emissions. Through the KAYA identity,future carbon emissions trends in Shanghai was predicted. And low-carbon development strategies and recommendations of Shanghai was proposed based on the findings and comprehensive evaluation. The main conclusions are as follows:(1)Status and features of carbon emissions in ShanghaiThe net carbon emissions Shanghai was increase from 18200.34 million tons in2003, to 23762.96 million tons in 2012, with an average annual growth rate of about3.2%. Total emissions changed in stages with the time series, and negative growth happened in 2009. On the contribution of the carbon source of Shanghai, carbon emissions had mainly come from the consumption of fossil fuel with contribution rate of 98%, while the industrial process is 1.8%. There was an increasing trend in carbon emissions per capita, but carbon intensity of Shanghai showed a linear decrease.Compared with other provinces in Yangtze River Delta, total emissions of Shanghai were the least, but ranked first in carbon emissions per capita, the gap was graduallynarrowed over time. Compared with that of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, carbon intensity of Shanghai City went high at the beginning to low thereafter, with sharp declines within ten-years. With regard to carbon emission efficiency, the average value of Shanghai is1.005 from 2003 to 2012, higher than Zhejiang’s 0.957 and Jiangsu’s 0.9, but less stable with undulation changes.(2)Driving factors of Shanghai’s carbon emissions:The factors affecting carbon emissions of Shanghai in 2003-2012 was analyzed under the extended STIRPAT model. Energy structure was found to be the most powerful diver with a driving index of 0.215, followed by population driving index of0.162, and industrial structure the weakest with 0.125. Advances in technology was found to inhibit growth in carbon emissions. All driving index were less than 1, which indicated that the change rate of environmental effects brought by driving factors was less than that of driving factors.(3)Prediction of Shanghai carbon emissions in the future:Through the KAYA identity, future carbon emissions trends in Shanghai was predicted. On this basis, situations was set up to predict carbon emissions over the next 15 years. The development of the baseline scenario mode, which is the current development situation, characteristics and laws of historical development. The city’s carbon emissions is estimated to reach 26171.4 million tons in 2015, and is estimated to be 49031.37 million tons by 2030. In reference scene of development mode, in which the city still keep same of economic development speed, but strengthen energy structure optimization, and energy conservation and emission reduction, mainly through energy strength reduction and population control, carbon emissions volume is predicted to be 24560.54 million tons in 2015, and can be controlled within 29644.38 million tons in 2030, carbon emissions reduced by 6% and 39%respectively relative to benchmark mode.