Spatiotemporal changes of China's carbon emissions

Bofeng Cai, Xiuquan Wang, Guohe Huang, Jinnan Wang, Dong Cao, Brian W. Baetz, Lei Liu, Hua Zhang, Adam Fenech, Zhu Liu

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Abstract

Spatiotemporal changes in China's carbon emissions during the 11th and 12th Five‐Year Plan periods are quantified for the first time through a reconstructed nationwide high‐resolution gridded data set. The hot spots of carbon emissions in China have expanded by 28.5% (toward the west) in the north and shrunk by 18.7% in the south; meanwhile, the emission densities in North and South China have increased by 15.7% and 49.9%, respectively. This suggests a clear transition to a more intensive economic growth model in South China as a result of the energy conservation and emission reduction policies, while the expanded carbon hot spots in North China are mainly dominated by the Grand Western Development Program. The results also show that China's carbon emissions exhibit a typical spatially intensive, high‐emission pattern, which has undergone a slight relaxation (up to 3%) from 2007 to 2012 due to a typical urbanization process.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)8536-8546
Number of pages11
JournalGeophysical Research Letters
Volume45
Issue number16
Early online date13 Aug 2018
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 28 Aug 2018

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