| Presently, the reduction in carbon dioxide emissions has become the global mutual recognition. As a big responsible country, China proposed a target to reduce carbon emission per unit GDP by 40%-45% in 2020 compared with that of 2005. But to really realize this aim, China still confronted with arduous and urgent tasks.The main source of carbon emission varies in different stages of the social and economic development according to developed countries’experience. The trend of carbon emission in the production field is supposed to be downward along with industrial structure adjustments. Yet with the development of urbanization and individual’s living standards, the share of carbon emission in the consumption field is very likely to increase continuously, and become rapidly an important part of China’s future carbon reduction. Although the development of technology has made great contributions to the carbon emission reduction, but the following’rebound effect’may increase the consumption and living needs, even may cancel out the hard-won achievements in the production field.Transportation is one of the major source of carbon emissions in daily life. Due to the increasing travel demand of residents, the carbon emissions are growing fast, among which the commuting accounts for 60 percent of the total carbon emissions, as the greatest contributor. Once the commuting mode is shaped, the future improvement of carbon reduction will be limited.In addition, the carbon emission situation has "20%-80% phenomenon", which means the majority of total emission (80%) is caused by the minority of members of society (20%). This means that there are a few groups producing most emissions in society. So it makes more sense to specify the high-emission groups, estimate the scale of these groups and analyze their features. Compared with the west, China is likely to have more typical "20%-80% phenomenon" since that it is undergoing transitional developing period, has a huge population and the obvious difference on the life styles and consuming patterns among people of various classes. However, there is few studies and researches about the topic that how the wealthy class will impact the society. So it makes more sense to care the difference on the carbon emission by various groups than to only focus on the "per capita" emission. We need to specify the high-emission groups, estimate the scale of these groups, describe their life styles, how these people lead others’living styles, and how they guide the total carbon emission in society. This analysis helps the related government departments to better estimate the current carbon emission, the trend and potential of carbon reduction in the consumption field.Based on the data from 2013 Carbon Consumption Survey in Shanghai, this paper aims to give insights into the distribution of residents’commuting carbon emissions and examine what characteristics are associated with residents’commuting choices and the associated CO2 emissions. The results showed that the amount of individual CO2 emissions is 1213.9g per day and there is a huge range in emission distribution.This paper also defines the person whose daily carbon emissions above 3000g as obvious high-emission commuter, while those carbon emissions below this level but adopting the high-emission traffic mode as the potential high-emission commuter. Finally, using ordered logistic regression to compare these two kinds of commuters, it shows that the obvious high-emission commuters are mostly male while potential high-emission commuters are more affected by children and district factors. High income, educational status and owing private car are their common characteristics. At last, this paper proposed two aspects of policy recommendations, one is for changing the private car travel behavior, the other is to improve the public transport services. |
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