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CO2 Emission of Fossil Fuel Consumption of Mainland China from 1991 to 2010

Author(s): Qi Yue and Xie GaodiSource: Journal of Resources and Ecology, 3(4):324-329. 2012.Published By: Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy ofSciencesDOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5814/j.issn.1674-764x.2012.04.005URL: http://www.bioone.org/doi/full/10.5814/j.issn.1674-764x.2012.04.005

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J. Resour. Ecol. 2012 3 (4) 324-329

DOI:10.5814/j.issn.1674-764x.2012.04.005

www.jorae.cn

Dec., 2012 Journal of Resources and Ecology Vol.3 No.4

Received: 2012-10-09 Accepted: 2012-11-19Foundation: the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31070384).* Corresponding author: XIE Gaodi. Email: xiegd@igsnrr.ac.cn.

1 IntroductionSince 1970s, global climate change has drawn great attention from both the public and scientists. Classical physics and radiation theory can accurately prove that global average surface temperature would be 33 lower than that is actually measured at present, if greenhouse effects did not exist on the earth’s surface; the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which consist of CO2, CH4, N2O, water vapor, etc., is believed mainly due to anthropogenic fossil fuel use (Chen and Li 1999). Moreover, during the combustion processes of many kinds of fossil fuel, toxic gases and aerosols are also emitted into the atmosphere, which affect not only ecosystems also human health. On the other hand, fossil fuel is still the most important energy source we reply on today, which is unfortunately non-renewable. In the context of global warming and energy crisis, the study of fossil fuel consumption and its CO2 (the most important greenhouse gas) emission bears obvious significance.

China is the largest developing country and is reported to emit most greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the world since 2007.

The scale of CO2 emission from fossil fuel consumption would still increase as the economy and society develop, thus we would have to face more challenges. In this study, we investigate long-term (1991–2010) characteristics of CO2 emission of fossil fuel use in mainland China, including interannual trends, energy structure, per capita CO2 emission, CO2 emission intensity, and regional distribution.

2 Data sources2.1 Fossil fuel consumption and economic and social

statistical dataAll the statistical data for mainland China and relevant parameters needed in this research are from China Energy Statistical Yearbook (1991–2011), China Statistical Yearbook 2011 (National Bureau of Statistics of China 2012), the official website of the Central People’s Government of China, a study of the comparative evaluation of greenhouse gas emission factor of the major energy sources in China (Ma 2002). All the parameters needed are listed in Appendix 1. Data for fossil fuel consumption of Tibet Autonomous Region is not included in our research due to the data availability.

CO2 Emission of Fossil Fuel Consumption of Mainland China from 1991 to 2010

QI Yue1,2 and XIE Gaodi1*

1 Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China;2 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China

Abstract:

Key words:

QI Yue and XIE Gaodi: CO2 Emission of Fossil Fuel Consumption of Mainland China from 1991 to 2010 325

2.2 Estimation of CO2 emission

Apparent consumption method is used to calculate the CO2 emission of mainland China. This method is based on primary energy output, and can achieve an adjusted result by calculating the imports and exports of all fuels, fuel filling of Chinese and foreign airplanes and ships on international routes in our ports and stock changes, in order that all the carbon amount can be included in our calculations (Gao et al. 1994). However, this is not an accurate calculation of the actual consumption of all fuels. It is the default method recommended by IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (revised 1996 IPCC guidelines for national greenhouse gas inventories, http://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/gl/invs1.html). The method applies macro energy data to measure the general energy activities of a nation (Lin and Li 1998; Zhang and Zhang 2005).

We assume that oxidized carbon can all become carbon dioxide, so the equation for the emission by fossil fuel consumption would be:

Release Amount of CO2 = (Cp–Cs)*Co*44/12 (1)where, Cp is carbon content, Cs is the amount of fixed carbon in products, Co is oxidation rate of carbon, 44/12 is the ratio of the molecular weight of CO2 to the atomic weight of carbon. The calculation can be divided into six steps:

(1) Estimate the consumption amount of fossil fuels categorized by variety

Consumption amount of fuels of different varieties = one-time energy production + import volume – export volume – fuel filling of international routes – stock changes(2) Convert fuel consumption data into a unified unit of

energy Consumption amount of fuels of different varieties = Consumption amount of fuels of different varieties *energy conversion factor(3) Choose corresponding carbon emission factors for

different variety of fuels and estimate the total carbon content of fuels

Total carbon content of fuels of different varieties = Consumption amount of fuels of different varieties *potential carbon emission factor(4) Estimate carbon amount that can be fixed in products

in the long term, and calculate net carbon emission amountCarbon fixation quantity outside energy use = product amount outside energy use * carbon content *carbon fixation rateNet emission amount of fuels = Total carbon content of fuels of different varieties – carbon fixation quantity outside energy use (5) Calculate the amount of oxidized carbon in

combustionActual carbon emission amount = Net emission amount of fuels *oxidation rate

(6) Convert carbon emission amount into carbon dioxide emission amount

Actual CO2 emission amount = Actual carbon emission amount *44/12An advantage of this calculating method is that data are

accessible, but the loss amount of fossil fuels is large in the process of transportation, distribution and storage; so the data used in calculation should be different from the amount of actual consumption and our calculation can be larger than that in reality.

3 Result and discussion3.1 Interannual trends The scale of CO2 emissions of fossil fuel consumption have been growing rapidly in recent years in China with the fast development of social economy. The total amount of CO2 emission in China has reached a high level and has demonstrated an increasing growth rate. China is experiencing a new round of increase with heavy chemical industry as the leading factor. Both urbanization and industrialization are the causation of increase in energy consumption and CO2 emission.

As is shown in Fig. 1, the CO2 emission in China has increased from 2293.01 to 7467.77 Mt over the 20 years from 1991 to 2010; the growth rate was low between 1991 and 1997; mainland China’s fossil energy consumption has been decreasing, followed by the decrease in CO2 emission between 1997 and 2000 because of the influence of financial crisis in Asia in 1997 and 1998 (Streets et al. 2001). The slump in virtual economies caused the reduction in CO2 emission in China, but CO2 emission cannot be essentially reduced in this way. However, China has entered a new round of CO2 emission increase with higher growth rate since 2001. Among total CO2 emission produced by fossil fuel consumption, coal has constituted the highest proportion (79.98%, 2010) all along, and it increased by 205% during 1991–2010; meanwhile oil contributed 17.35% and increased by 325%; and natural gas contributed 2.66% and increased by 525%.

Fig. 1 Interannual trends of CO2 emission of fossil fuel consumption and the contribution of all kinds of fossil fuel.

Natural gas

Coal

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8000

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Journal of Resources and Ecology Vol.3 No.4, 2012326

The proportions of coal consumption to the total consumption of energy have been above 70% over the past 20 years in China. The fossil oil import and natural gas exploitation have gone up with years, and coal consumption has fallen, but the proportion of it would maintain at around 60% for a long time in the future (Tang 2008). Research has shown that for the same one unit quantity of heat, carbon dioxide emissions from coal consumption are 36% and 61% higher than those from oil and natural gas consumption respectively (Qi and Dong 2004). Coal would remain to be the most important fossil fuel in China for a long time in the future, because China is rich in coal resources but poor in oil and gas reserves. Electric power, iron and steel, building materials and chemical industry are industries with the most centralized consumption of coals in China. The proportions of the consumption amounts of electric power, iron and steel, building materials and chemical industry to the total consumption amount are 52%, 13%, 17% and 6% respectively (Wang 2006). The dissipation of coal resource is serious in its exploitation and utilization, and environmental problems including coal dust pollution can easily arise. Exploitable rich ores is becoming fewer and exploitation cost of coals will be higher in the long run. The extensive use of clean energy is an irresistible trend; and readjustment of fossil energy use structure is one of the major measures for China to face new challenges of energy problems and global warming.

3.2 Per capita CO2 emission and carbon emission intensityPer capita fossil fuel consumption CO2 emission of mainland China has reached 5.56 t CO2 person-1. With the increasing scale of total emission and birth control it would be very difficult to keep it low because the advancement of living standard will greatly stimulate people’s demands for infrastructures, dwellings and vehicles (http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2007-8/).

Carbon emission intensity is the ratio of CO2 emission to GDP, indicating CO2 emission produced by one unit of GDP (Li et al. 2007). This conception is first brought out by the

U.S. in 2000 as the main index for greenhouse gas emission mitigation commitments. The most influencing parameters of carbon emission intensity are energy efficiency, industrial structure, species of fossil fuel, and currency exchange rate, etc. (He and Liu 2004). This index encourages not only on carbon emission reduction but also on development, and as a comprehensive index it represents the true contribution to carbon emission mitigation. During the last 20 years, mainland China’s carbon emission intensity has declined for 83%; the decrease rate is surprisingly large as compared to other countries especially before 2000 (He et al. 2002). After a slight increase during 2001 to 2003 recently carbon emission intensity is decreasing slower (Fig. 2). To discuss carbon emission intensity, also CO2 emission elasticity should be taken into account and due to the regional development gaps of China, detailed discussion of carbon emission intensity will be presented in section 3.3.

3.3 Provincial CO2 emission

In the last five years (2006–2010), fossil fuel consumption and its CO2 emission have increased rapidly, but the carbon emission intensity decreased very slowly. We should also notice that mainland China has regional development gaps, thus we calculate the provincial CO2 emission of total fossil fuel consumption, per capita emission, carbon emission intensity of 2010 and their differences between those of year 2006, meanwhile CO2 emission elasticity during 2006 to 2010 (see Appendix 2). In Fig. 3 the lower columns show the total CO2 emission of fossil fuel consumption in 2006 and the increased amount from 2006 to 2010; the upper column indicates the per capita CO2 emission in 2010. Fig. 4 shows the carbon emission elasticity and carbon emission intensity changes during 2006 to 2011.

To a certain extent, the distribution of total CO2 emission of per capita CO2 emission represent the level of development in each region. High CO2 emissions of fossil fuel consumption distribute in developed provinces and resource exporting provinces including Shangdong, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, and Guangdong etc.; meanwhile in those regions, the increased amount and per capita CO2 emissions are also larger; in Ningxia, per capita CO2 emission is high but with a small scale of total CO2 emission.

The majority of regions with high CO2 emission intensity are underdeveloped regions in western China, including Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, Guizhou Province and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, meanwhile during the last five years the carbon emission intensity decreased a lot; in contrast, regions with relatively low CO2 emission intensity are municipalities directly under Central Government, such as Beijing and Shanghai, and economically developed regions in eastern China, including Guangdong and Zhejiang. CO2 emission elasticity refers to the ratio of energy consumption increase to GDP increase. During the beginning period of industrialization, there usually exist larger CO2 emission elasticity and carbon emission intensity due to the inefficient use of energy,

Fig. 2 Per capita CO2 emission of fossil fuel consumption and CO2 emission intensity.

Per capita CO2 emissionCarbon emission intensity

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-1)

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QI Yue and XIE Gaodi: CO2 Emission of Fossil Fuel Consumption of Mainland China from 1991 to 2010 327

imbalanced industry structure, and fast increased demand on energy. We find that carbon emission intensity decreased in most provinces; however the provinces with higher carbon emission elasticity, including Hainan, Shanxi, Heilongjiang, etc., the carbon emission intensity increased or decreased less than other region during the last five years; high carbon emission elasticity indicates the dependency of economic development on energy consumption in those regions, which could be caused by different resource endowments or an unhealthy economy structure.

4 ConclusionsDuring the last 20 years, mainland China has experienced significant changes in all aspects of society, economy, culture, environment etc. The increasing demands on natural resources and environment have brought many problems, one of which is the conflict between economic-social development (fossil fuel consumption) and global warming (GHGs emissions mitigation). Based on the long-term data set and relative analysis, we clearly see the trends and distribution of CO2 emission produced by fossil fuel consumption, moreover we investigate the relationship between economic increase and CO2 emission:

(1) From 1991 to 2010, the scale of CO2 emission of fossil fuel consumption of mainland China increased to nearly 4 times as in beginning; especially after the Asian Economic Crisis in the end of 20th century, the emission increased even faster. This indicates a fast economic

increase which we are very glad to see, and this always reminds us it is time to find out a more environment friendly develop paths;

(2) Per capita CO2 emission of fossil fuel consumption, which is used to be a strong argument of China in international climate change negotiations, has increased significantly, and has made the strong point disappear gradually; CO2 emission intensity decreased as China committed, however since 2001 the rate of decline has become small. These are all challenges of China in future to face the global climate change and the pressure to reduce GHGs emissions;

(3) Regional development gaps are now serious concern of mainland China; as a large country, we have already learned from the relatively developed parts; thus for the developing regions in the west, which are of strategic importance in resources and environment to the whole country, we should bring advanced development notions and invest proper projects by subsidies etc.to set a sustainable development model.

The growth of CO2 emission has brought new pressures and challenges to China’s development. Meanwhile, we should also consider the uncertainties in global climate change (Yang and Liu 2001). Not only to reduce GHGs emissions, but also try to find a low-carbon sustainable development path. We should put more emphasis on healthier industry and energy use structures, intensive usage of fossil fuel, more efficient mining and transportation, and

Fig. 4 Carbon emission intensity and carbon emission elasticity by province from 2006 to 2010

Tian

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Shan

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Carbon emission intensity changes between 2006 and 2010

Carbon emission elasticity

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Fig. 3 Provincial CO2 emission of fossil fule consumption and per capita CO2 emission from 2006 to 2010.

2 E+05

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Journal of Resources and Ecology Vol.3 No.4, 2012328

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Appendix 1 Parameters for the calculation.

Consumption conversion factor

CO2 emission factor

Carbon oxidation

rate(TJ Mt-1) (kg CO2 TJ-1)Raw coal 20 908 24.74 0.98Crude oil 41 816 20 0.99Gasoline 43 070 18.9 0.99Kerosene 43 070 19.6 0.99Diesel oil 42 652 20.2 0.99Fuel oil 41 816 21.1 0.99LPG 50 179 17.2 0.99Refinery gas 46 055 16.8 0.99Natural gas 39 (TJ 10-8 m3) 15.3 0.995

Appendix 2 Provincial CO2 emission of 2010 and the differences with 2006.

a more balanced and complementary development pattern among the southern, central and western China.

Province

CO2 emission (103 t CO2)

Per capita CO2 emission (t CO2 person-1)

Carbon emission intensity (kg CO2 USD-1) CO2 emission

elasticity2010

Difference with 2006 2010

Difference with 2006 2010

Difference with 2006

Beijing 1.02E+5 1.37E+4 5.18 –0.38 0.45 –0.23 0.21 Tianjin 1.25E+5 4.23E+4 9.65 1.92 0.85 –0.31 0.48 Hebei 5.46E+5 1.48E+5 7.58 1.82 1.67 –0.50 0.48 Shanxi 6.83E+5 3.45E+5 19.11 9.10 4.64 0.31 1.15 Inner Mongolia 5.94E+5 2.80E+5 24.03 11.01 3.18 –0.79 0.65 Liaoning 4.08E+5 9.27E+4 9.33 1.94 1.38 –0.74 0.30 Jilin 2.20E+5 5.34E+4 8.01 1.89 1.59 –0.85 0.31 Heilongjiang 3.45E+5 1.23E+5 8.99 3.19 2.08 –0.15 0.83 Shanghai 1.68E+5 2.44E+4 7.28 –0.01 0.61 –0.24 0.27 Jiangsu 5.10E+5 1.16E+5 6.49 1.34 0.77 –0.36 0.33 Zhejiang 3.54E+5 8.33E+4 6.51 1.16 0.80 –0.28 0.40 Anhui 2.75E+5 8.99E+4 4.61 1.59 1.39 –0.50 0.48 Fujian 1.80E+5 5.34E+4 4.86 1.34 0.76 –0.28 0.45 Jiangxi 1.28E+5 3.33E+4 2.88 0.68 0.85 –0.38 0.36 Shandong 8.83E+5 1.91E+5 9.21 1.77 1.41 –0.57 0.35 Henan 5.64E+5 1.94E+5 6.00 2.05 1.53 –0.35 0.60 Hubei 2.79E+5 7.57E+4 4.87 1.30 1.09 –0.58 0.34 Hunan 2.30E+5 4.03E+4 3.50 0.51 0.89 –0.64 0.20 Guangdong 4.50E+5 8.71E+4 4.31 0.47 0.61 –0.24 0.33 Guangxi 1.32E+5 4.17E+4 2.85 0.95 0.86 –0.32 0.46 Hainan 2.97E+4 2.25E+4 3.42 2.56 0.90 0.47 3.18 Chongqing 1.46E+5 5.90E+4 5.08 1.96 1.15 –0.24 0.66 Sichuan 2.93E+5 9.76E+4 3.64 1.25 1.07 –0.34 0.51 Guizhou 2.61E+5 7.84E+4 7.49 2.55 3.54 –1.33 0.44 Yunnan 1.93E+5 4.10E+4 4.20 0.80 1.67 –0.72 0.33 Shaanxi 2.76E+5 8.24E+4 7.38 2.16 1.70 –0.85 0.38 Gansu 1.16E+5 3.41E+4 4.52 1.32 1.76 –0.49 0.52 Qinghai 3.66E+4 1.31E+4 6.49 2.20 1.69 –0.57 0.51 Ningxia 1.52E+5 6.81E+4 23.99 10.12 5.62 –1.60 0.61 Xinjiang 2.05E+5 7.98E+4 9.38 3.27 2.35 –0.21 0.81

QI Yue and XIE Gaodi: CO2 Emission of Fossil Fuel Consumption of Mainland China from 1991 to 2010 329

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