Socioeconomic impact assessment of China's CO2 emissions peak prior to 2030
Graphical abstract
Introduction
In the “U.S.–China Joint Announcement on Climate Change” released in 2014, China announced that its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions will peak by 2030. China's CO2 emissions through 2030 will have strong implications for the challenge of limiting temperature changes caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to less than 2 °C from pre-industrial levels. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report, the 2 °C target is likely to be achieved if atmospheric concentrations are controlled to 450 parts per million (ppm) carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2eq) through 2100. To accomplish this, global GHG emissions need to be reduced to 30–50 GtCO2eq by 2030 (IPCC, 2014). However, China's CO2 emissions from fuel combustion were 8.5 Gt in 2013, accounting for a quarter of global emissions (Liu et al., 2015b, Liu et al., 2016, Yuan et al., 2016). In fact, China's carbon emissions have shown exponential growth over the past several decades and accounted for more than half of the increase in global CO2 emissions from 1990 to 2012 (Feng et al., 2013). If China does not take measures to control GHG emissions, its CO2 emissions may reach as high as 18 Gt by 2030 (Guan et al., 2008, Tol, 2013), in which case the global 2 °C target would be unlikely to be achieved. However, China can significantly reduce its carbon emissions if it takes measures to achieve peak CO2 emissions levels by 2030. In this paper, we assess potential socioeconomic impacts of China's CO2 emissions if they reach peak levels prior to 2030.
Over the past decade, numerous institutions and researchers have attempted to predict the year during which China's CO2 emissions will peak. The most common tools used are environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) theory (Chang, 2015, Diao et al., 2009, Richmond and Kaufmann, 2006), scenario analysis (He et al., 2012, Liu et al., 2015a, Zhang et al., 2016), and the IPAT model (He, 2013, Sadorsky, 2014, Yuan et al., 2014). Based on these different methods, researchers usually get different results on the peaking time of China's CO2 emissions. Zhang et al. (2014) used scenario analysis to research the role of technologies in CO2 mitigation in China. They found that China's CO2 emissions would peak by 2020 in a global carbon tax regime. He et al. (2012) proposed that China should peak its CO2 emissions around 2030 and realize a sharp emissions mitigation by 2050. Hao and Wei (2015) used Green Solow model (GSM) to forecast the turning point in China's CO2 emissions. The results showed that China's CO2 emissions would peak around 2047.
However, these methods can only determine when China's CO2 emissions will peak; they do not denote how such levels may be achieved. Therefore, we develop the Integrated Model of Economy and Climate (IMEC) based on the input-output model. In this paper, we use the IMEC model to explore whether China's CO2 emissions will peak before 2030 and whether China will incur social costs as a result of achieving this goal.
The input-output model has been extensively used in analyses of CO2 emissions (Mi et al., 2015a, Mi et al., 2016). Some researchers have used the input-output model to assess drivers of carbon emissions. The model is typically integrated with the structural decomposition analysis (SDA) to support the examination of emissions drivers and contributions. These drivers include gross domestic product (GDP) growth, energy efficiency, carbon efficiency, production structure, consumption structure, and population (Minx et al., 2009). China's carbon emission drivers have been quantified using this method (Su and Ang, 2012, Wei et al., 2016). Guan et al. (2008) used the input-output model to analyze drivers of Chinese CO2 emissions and to forecast resulting carbon emissions. Their results showed that China's production-related CO2 emissions would increase threefold by 2030.
Some scholars have used the multi-region input-output (MRIO) model to calculate consumption-based CO2 emissions and to analyze emissions embodied in interregional or international trade (Su and Ang, 2011, Weber and Matthews, 2007, Wiedmann, 2009). Carbon emissions embodied in international trade have increased considerably over the last several decades; these emissions are exported from China and other emerging markets to developed countries. For example, Peters and Hertwich (2008) found that over 5.3 Gt of CO2 were embodied in international trade in 2001. Davis and Caldeira (2010) showed that approximately 6.2 Gt of CO2 emissions were traded internationally in 2004 (23% of global emissions). Peters et al. (2011) showed that carbon emissions embodied in international trade increased to 7.8 Gt of CO2 in 2008 (26% of global emissions). Carbon leakage may also occur within a country's borders, and especially among countries exhibiting imbalanced regional development. Feng et al. (2013) tracked CO2 emissions embodied in trade between Chinese provinces and internationally. Their results showed that 80% of carbon emissions embodied in goods consumed in highly developed coastal regions were imported from less developed Chines provinces.
Section snippets
Methodology and data
We develop an Integrated Model of Economy and Climate (IMEC), an optimization model based on the input-output model. We use the IMEC to examine socioeconomic impacts of peak Chinese emissions.
Economic growth
China's economy has enjoyed rapid growth. The average annual GDP growth rate has been 9.5% over the past two decades. In addition, China's annual GDP growth rate has shown a clear downward trend. The country's GDP growth rate increased from 1998 to 2007, peaking at 14.2% in 2007. It then decreased to 7.4% in 2014. It is very likely that China's GDP growth will continue to decrease over the next two decades. The lower bound of the country's GDP growth rate is currently 7% (2015) and will
The path to China's carbon peak
There is a tradeoff between GDP growth and carbon emissions reduction. In this study, the lower bound of the average annual GDP growth rate is predicted to remain at approximately 5% from 2015 to 2035. Under this constraint, China may experience a peak in carbon emissions by 2026. From objectives to maximize social welfare, an optimal pathway is obtained. First, China's CO2 emissions will peak at 11.20 Gt in 2026 according to this scenario, and cumulative emissions from 2015 to 2035 are
Conclusions
Currently, China emits approximately 25% of global CO2 emissions. With the dramatic growth in China's carbon emissions, this percentage is on the rise. Thus, China's carbon emissions plan will have strong implications for global mitigation. China has promised to peak its carbon emissions by 2030, but this target will not achieve the 2 °C target. We find that China may peak its CO2 emissions by 2026 if its average annual GDP growth rate exceeds 5% from 2015 to 2035. According to this scenario,
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by National Key R&D Program of China [No. 2016YFA0602603, 2016YFA0602604], National Natural Science Foundation of China [No. 71603248, 71521002, 71020107026, 71573013 and 41328008], the UK Economic and Social Research Council [No. ES/L016028/1], Natural Environment Research Council [No. NE/N00714X/1] and British Academy Grant [No. AF150310].
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