Estimates of China's national and regional transport sector CO2 emissions in 2007

Energy Policy 41 (2012) 474–483

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Estimates of China’s national and regional transport sector CO2 emissions in 2007 Bofeng Cai n, Weishan Yang, Dong Cao, Lancui Liu, Ying Zhou, Zhansheng Zhang Center for Climate and Environmental Policy, Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning, Beijing 100012, China

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history: Received 19 May 2011 Accepted 3 November 2011 Available online 26 November 2011

This study has proposed a new solution concerning fuel consumption in China’s transport sector, which has provided a more accurate basis for estimating CO2 emissions in the transport sector both on national and regional level. Our analysis indicated that CO2 emissions in China’s transport sector in 2007 reached to 436 Mt, higher than 408 Mt estimated by IEA. The CO2 emissions in transport sector accounted for 7% of China’s total fossil fuel combustion CO2 emissions, which is much lower than the global average level of 23%. The CO2 emission from road transportation was 376.6 Mt, 37% higher than IEA’s estimation. Therefore we thought IEA significantly underestimated the amount of CO2 emissions from road transportation in China, inevitably they overestimated CO2 emissions in other transportation means. The IEA’s result of road transportation CO2 emissions is only 67.64% in the entire transport sector, but our study showed this ratio could be up to 86.32%. This study also preliminarily analyzed the driving-forces of CO2 emissions in transport sector at regional level. The results showed that the CO2 emissions in transport sector are closely associated with GDP. Finally the article had reviewed some policies in China’s transport sector. & 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: China Transport sector CO2 emissions

1. Introduction CO2 emissions in transport sector have attracted the attentions of policymakers both on transport and climate change fields, because of the share in overall emissions and persistent growth. In 2007, the oil consumption for global transportation accounted for 61.2% of the global total oil consumption, equivalent 2.16 billion tons of standard oil. Transport sector has become the sector with the largest and fastest-growing oil consumption (IEA, 2009a). According to IEA, 6.62 billion tons of CO2 was generated by the global transport sector in 2007, accounting for 23% of the fossil fuel-related CO2 emissions (IEA, 2009b). This is 1.45 times higher than the 4.57 billion tons generated in 1990, and the number is expected to reach 9.30 billion tons by 2030 (IEA, 2009b). U.S. transport sector released 1795 million tons (Mt) CO2 emissions in 2008, accounting for 30.32% of the total U.S. CO2 emissions in 2008. From 1990 to 2008, CO2 emissions in U.S. transport sector rose by 20% (U.S.EPA, 2010). CO2 emissions in European Union (EU-15) transport sector reached to 829 Mt in 2008, accounting for 24.98% of the total CO2 emissions. While most of the industrial sectors in EU-15 have achieved successful abatement, the CO2 emissions in transport sector in EU-15

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increased by 21% in 1990–2008 (European Environment Agency, 2010). CO2 emissions in transport sector of the developed countries have become an important source of the national CO2 emissions. CO2 emissions in transport sector of China also dramatically increased because of rapid growth in motor vehicles’ numbers. The regional pattern of transport CO2 emissions and overall national estimation, however, remain uncertain. IEA estimated the amount of CO2 emission from China’s transport sector annually and published the results in its CO2 Emissions from Fuel Combustion. The results has been used and cited widely (Timilsina and Shrestha, 2009), sometimes by Chinese experts as well (Wang et al., 2007). However, these data were questionable because no official statistical data or materials directly supported the estimates of CO2 emissions in China’s transport sector. China’s official statistics of transport energy consumption only includes the energy consumption of vehicles engaged in commercial operations but excludes the fuel consumption by non-commercial modes (mostly private vehicles, company-owned vehicles, and government-owned vehicles) (Department of Energy Statistics of National Bureau of Statistics, 2008; Geng et al., 2009; Wu, 2007), which is the dominant source of China’s transport CO2 emissions. Given this obstacle, researchers and even officials of the National Bureau of Statistics (Geng et al., 2009) have to acquire overall transport fuel consumption data by roughly estimating the fuel consumption of the private vehicles. We have doubts about the

B. Cai et al. / Energy Policy 41 (2012) 474–483

data sources and methodology of IEA. It was very likely that IEA estimated fuel consumption of road transportation from experts’ opinions, and then estimated the total CO2 emission in entire transport sector. Obviously this method remains many uncertainties and lacks accuracy. According to the Initial National Communication on Climate Change of the People’s Republic of China, CO2 emissions in China’s transport sector were 166 Mt in 1994, accounting for 5.40% of the total CO2 emissions (National Development and Reform Commission, 2004). Since then, very few literatures concerning China’s CO2 emissions in transport sector have ever been available. There were also less researches and discussions conducted at the regional (provincial) level. The lack of fuel consumption data in road transportation is the biggest barrier for estimating CO2 emissions in transport sector. The uncertainty of the estimation will affect the accuracy of CO2 emissions in the entire transport sector, because of prominence and the increasing share of road transportation fuel consumption in the sector. In 2007, China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection launched the first China Pollution Source Census, which was finished in 2010 and obtained thorough information from 1.58 million enterprises, including fuel consumption details at the facility level. The scope of the China Pollution Source Census database is more comprehensive than China’s national official statistics, which excluded the small enterprises with total income of less than 5 million CNY. The data from China Pollution Source Census provided us a unique opportunity to estimate fuel consumption in transport sector. Because most of the fuels consumed in road transportation are gasoline and diesel, transport fuel consumption can be calculated by subtracting the aggregate of the gasoline and diesel used in non-transportation parts from the national total oil consumption. This paper’s structure is organized as following: First, accounting CO2 emissions released from China’s transport sector, in particularly road transportation parts, both on national and regional level. Second, analyzing the relevance between CO2 emissions in transport sector and socio-economic factors; finally, reviewing the policies, which affected low carbon development in China’s transport sector.

2. Methodology In this paper, the transport sector includes road, rail, air, and water transportation. Only the on-site or the direct fuel combustion CO2 emissions were calculated, excluding indirect emissions such as those from electricity use. Based on the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, the accounting methods for CO2 emissions from mobile sources can be roughly divided into two categories: the method based on sold/consumed fuel and the method based on the vehicle kilometers traveled (VKT). The method based on VKT incur a high uncertainty, especially in road transportation, because factors such as motor type, fuel type, road condition, and driving experience have various effects on the oil consumption. Emission sources of road transportation are extremely numerous, which will cause many uncertainties. But apparently VKT method has its own advantage, because the results can not only distinguish the CO2 emissions sources from different types of vehicles, but also help for understanding the deep reason for CO2 emissions. Meanwhile VKT method also regarded as foundation for predicting CO2 emissions in different scenarios of transport sector. But if we adopt a method only for estimating overall CO2 emissions in transport sector, sold/consumed fuel method, although a top-down method, has an obvious advantage over the VKT method particularly in China. That is

475

because China’s oil supply is an extreme oligopoly; there are only three major suppliers (PetroChina, Sinopec, and CNOOC). Considering that the production and supply of petroleum products in China is highly state monopolistic, so the official statistics data are creditable and accurate. The estimation based on the consumption data of gasoline/diesel is more accurate than VKT method. Despite VKT method not having adequate accuracy, it is still the mainstreaming method for calculating fuel consumption and CO2 emissions in road transportation (Wang et al., 2007; He et al., 2005), and CO2 emissions in road transportation dominate the entire transport sector.VKT method is also very important for estimating the different CO2 emissions scenarios in transport sector. Therefore we primarily used the sold/consumed fuel method for estimating CO2 emissions and then adopted VKT methods for comparative analysis only. The nationwide CO2 emissions in transport sector were calculated based on the fuel consumption data. At the provincial level, as a uniform standard of fuel statistics is not available in all provinces, a hybrid approach based both on the fuel consumption and transport turnover (in terms of passenger/freight kilometer) data was used. Eq. (1) was used to determine CO2 emissions from the fuel consumption, and Eqs. (1) and (2) were utilized to calculate the regional CO2 emissions from fuel consumption and transport turnovers X E¼ EF j,k  F j,k ð1Þ j,k

E¼

X EF j,k  V j,k  Mj,k

ð2Þ

j,k

where E refers to CO2 emissions from the transport sector of one province, EF j,k represents the emission factors of the different transport modes kand different fuel types j, F j,k refers to the amount of different fuel types of the different transport modes, V j,k represents the total turnover of the different transport modes and the different fuel types, M j,k represents the energy consumption per amount of transport turnover of the different transport modes and different fuel types, and subscripts k andj represent the transport modes (road, rail, air, and water) and fuel types (gasoline, diesel, aviation kerosene, and fuel oil), respectively. Table 1 shows the detailed categories of our calculation. The CO2 emission contributions of the International Bunker Fuels, namely the emissions from the international aviation and international marine, have remained controversial and thus were not considered in this study. Another problem concerning the estimate of the regional road transportation CO2 emissions is cross-boundary refueling, which caused by vehicles that sometimes may refuel in the provinces other than where they were registered in. Given that the amount of cross-boundary refueling is relatively small compared with the oil consumption of a whole Table 1 Methods of CO2 emission calculation in the transport sector. Transportation modes

Vehicle type

Fuel type

Method

Road Rail

Gasoline, diesel Diesel

Eq. (1) Eqs. (1) and (2)

Aviation

Motor vehicle Internal combustion locomotive Aircraft

Eqs. (1) and (2)

Navigation

Ship

Aviation kerosene Diesel, fuel oil

Eqs. (1) and (2)

Note: Eq. (2) also applied on road transport CO2 emission, but the results were for analysis only, the conclusion eventually based on Eq. (1).

B. Cai et al. / Energy Policy 41 (2012) 474–483

province and the effects of the offset, so cross-boundary refueling was not considered in our calculation.

3. Data sources 3.1. Road transportation The road transportation is predominance in transport sector in China. Road vehicles include passenger vehicles, freight vehicles, three-wheeled vehicles, low-speed freight vehicles, and motorcycles. Gasoline and diesel are the main fuels used for road transportation. Other fuels including liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and compressed natural gas (CNG), mainly used by public buses and taxis, were negligible. In 2007 China’s transport sector totally consumed 539.1 thousand tons LPG and 10.43 hundred million cubic meters CNG (Department of Energy Statistics of National Bureau of Statistics, 2008),which after converting into coal equivalent is about 1.3% of total fuel consumption in the sector. Gasoline is used almost exclusively by vehicles, besides very few amount used in the industry (mainly as extraction solvent). Therefore, two steps were conducted to determine the gasoline consumption in road transportation of China’s 30 provinces: (1) aggregating the gasoline used in the industry (from the facility level to avoid any omission and imprecision); and (2) subtracting the total amount of industrial gasoline use from the total gasoline consumed in all the provinces. The total gasoline consumption data in entire country and provinces are from China Energy Statistics Yearbooks. There are three steps to determine the diesel consumption in road transportation: (1) aggregating the diesel consumption in the industry (mostly as motor energy); (2) estimating the diesel consumption in rail and navigation; and (3) subtracting the results obtained in Steps 1 and 2 as well as the amount of diesel used in agriculture from the total diesel consumption in every province. The total gasoline and diesel consumption in China’s road transportation in 2007 were 53.54 and 68.71 Mt, which accounted for 97% and 55% of the national total gasoline and diesel consumption, respectively (Department of Energy Statistics of National Bureau of Statistics, 2008). The gasoline share is close to the 95% estimated by Li and Wu, the Institute of Comprehensive Transportation of China Development and Reform Commission (Li and Wu, 2008; Wu, 2007), but higher than the 80% in 2004 estimated by Geng et al. (2009), the National Bureau of Statistics of China. The diesel share is close to the 60% estimated by Li and Wu (2008) and Wu (2007) and the 52% by Geng et al. (2009). Our estimates are also very close to the 54.15 Mt of gasoline consumption and 68.20 Mt of diesel consumption, which were calculated by Wang (2009). This estimation process and the results can be considered credible under the current circumstance of insufficient official data. When VKT method is adopted, the data demanded is very complicated. The major reason is because vehicle types (in particularly engines types), mileages and fuel consumption/100 km vary greatly. In 2007 China Pollution Source Census has surveyed vehicle conditions in 4 municipalities directly under the central government and 283 prefecture-level cities, which covered China’s whole mainland. The vehicles have four major categories, which consists of passenger vehicles (mini duty car, light duty car, medium duty car and heavy duty car), freight vehicles (mini trucks, light duty trucks, medium duty trucks and heavy duty trucks), three-wheeled vehicles and low-speed freight vehicles, and motorcycles (motorcycle and auto-cycle). Passenger vehicles also include taxi and public bus. All categories are then further divided based on fuel types (gasoline and diesel). Therefore according to vehicle size,

Kilometers travelled (Thousand Kilometer)

476

40

35

30

25

20 Cities

15 0

200 400 600 800 Passenger vehicles registered (Excludes public buses and taxi) (thousand)

Fig. 1. The number and mileages of passengers’ vehicles in China, 2007. Note: For convenient illustrating, the figure did not include Beijing, which already exceeded 2.1 million vehicles.

duty and fuel types, we have concluded 28 sub-categories for all vehicles. For all of these 28 sub-categories, we investigated their average mileages (regardless fuel types) and fuel economy (fuel consumption/100 km) at city level in 2007. Fig. 1 indicates registered vehicle numbers and mileages of passenger vehicles (exclude taxis and public buses). The amount of passenger vehicles are about 79% of all vehicles, and the mileages of passenger vehicles have large variations among all vehicles, so we have to concern the uncertainties while we carrying out the research. For taxis, three-wheeled vehicles and low-speed freight vehicles, mileages and fuel economy as a pair of parameters has applied national wide. For public buses, three pairs of parameters are applied, which depend on classifications for all the cities in China. For motorcycles, eight pairs of parameters applied in eight different ‘economic zone’ in China. 3.2. Other transportation modes In railway transportation, locomotives can be divided into steam, internal combustion, and electric locomotives based on its power supply, which are driven by coal, diesel, and electricity, respectively. Steam locomotive was almost phased out in 2007, and the internal combustion locomotive became the only source of direct CO2 emissions from rail transportation. No public statistics on rail diesel consumption in China are available. Based on the Railway Statistical Bulletin in 2007 of China Ministry of Railways, central state-owned railroads have consumed total energy in 16.76 Mt of standard coal equivalent (Statistics Center of China Ministry of Railways, 2008). Assuming that there is no significant difference in the energy consumption per unit of turnover among central state-owned, local state-owned and joint-venture railroads, the energy consumption can be estimated based on the total turnover of railway and energy consumption per unit of turnover in the central state-owned railroads, which has reported to the China Ministry of Railways. The central state-owned railroads account for 93.5% of the national total railway turnover (China Transport Yearbook Editorial Department, 2008); thus, the estimation will cause a limited uncertainty. According to our calculations, China’s rail transportation energy consumption in 2007 is 17.94 Mt of the standard coal equivalent.

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According to Zhou, China’s Academy of Railway Sciences (Zhou and Xue, 2010), 35% of the energy consumption in rail is fossil oil in which diesel is overwhelmingly the main type and virtually there is no gasoline use. The rate is consistent with the experts’ view at the Energy Research Institute. Thus, the diesel consumption in rail transport in 2007 is 4.31 Mt, or 6.28 Mt of the standard coal equivalent. Meanwhile, the provincial fuel consumptions in rail transportation can be estimated based on the total turnover of the provincial rail transport and the railroads’ energy consumption per unit of turnover (Department of Energy Statistics of National Bureau of Statistics, 2008). In Air transportation, the fuel used by civil aircraft is aviation kerosene. Based on the China Energy Statistical Yearbook 2008, kerosene consumption in the transport, storage and post, and communications sectors is 11.30 Mt, which is consistent with the sum of the aviation kerosene consumption aggregated by aviation companies (China Transport Yearbook Editorial Department, 2008). This result proves our assumption that kerosene consumption in the transport, storage and post, and communications sectors is totally used in aviation transportation. Nevertheless, the kerosene consumption in the transport, storage and post, and communications sectors expressed in the provincial energy balance table does not reflect the province’s aviation kerosene consumption, because of different reporting standards at the provincial level and the complicated airplane ownership. Thus, although the data in the national energy balance meet the needs of estimating CO2 emission in aviation, the quality of the energy statistics at the provincial level did not meet the accounting requirement for aviation CO2 emissions. Therefore, this study determined the national CO2 emissions in aviation based on the kerosene consumption, and the provincial CO2 emissions in aviation were determined based on the aviation turnover. In waterway transportation, fuel oil and diesel are the source of energy supply. The ship size and the characteristics of marine machinery decide fuel types, for instance the coastal ships mainly use the fuel oil No. 120, 180, and 380, and inland ships mainly use the No. 0 diesel. The fuel consumption in water transport in different provinces can be calculated based on the fuel consumption per thousand tons km in water transports and the passenger and freight turnover in the inland and coastal regions of different provinces (China Transport Yearbook Editorial Department, 2008). 3.3. Emission factors The oxidation rate of fuel combustion has a substantial effect on the CO2 emission factor. The combustion efficiency is considerably high because the transport sector mainly uses liquid fuel.

Table 2 CO2 emission factors (kg/TJ) in China’s transport sector. Types of Fuel transport type

IPCC (IPCC, 2006) Default Lower limit

Upper limit

China (National Coordination Committee on Climate Change/National Development and Reform Commission, Energy Research Institute, 2007)

Road

Gasoline Diesel

69,300 74,100

67,500 73,000 72,600 74,800

69,300 74,067

Rail

Diesel

74,100

72,600 74,800

73,187

Water

Diesel Fuel oil

74,100 77,400

72,600 74,800 75,500 78,800

73,187 73,187

Air

Aviation 71,500 kerosene

69,800 74,400

71,500

477

In 2005, the fuel oxidation rates in China’s transport sector were more than 98% (National Coordination Committee on Climate Change/National Development and Reform Commission, Energy Research Institute, 2007). In 2007, promotion and proliferation of electronic fuel injection and three-way catalytic converter (TWC) technology further improved the combustion oxidation in motor vehicles. Thus, China’s combustion oxidation in the transport sector was very high in 2007, virtually reaching to 100%, whereas the default oxidation rate for mobile sources in the IPCC Guidelines is 1 (IPCC, 2006). The China-specific CO2 emission factor was used instead of the IPCC default value because of the considerable difference between these two coefficients (Table 2).

4. Results and discussion 4.1. CO2 emissions in China’s transport sector CO2 emissions in transport sector at the national and provincial levels in 2007 were calculated based on the provinces’ transport fuel consumption, transport turnover, and emission factors. China’s transport CO2 emissions in 2007 reached to 436 Mt, which is higher than 408 Mt estimated by IEA (IEA, 2009a). Fig. 2 shows the CO2 emission shares from the different modes of transportation. Road transportation CO2 emissions accounted for 86.32%, which is much higher than IEA’s estimation of 67.64%. CO2 emission in water transport accounted for 5.49% of the total emission in transport sector. Aviation has increased rapidly in recent years, but its overall CO2 emissions share in the transport sector was relatively small, accounting for 5.14%. CO2 emissions in railway transportation are lower than its 2005 level (16.4 Mt) as calculated by He and Li (2010). The main reason is that some coal-fired steam locomotive was still in use in 2005 and railway electrification was developed rapidly after 2005. CO2 emissions from rail accounted for only 3.05% of the total transport emissions, making it the lowest CO2 emission contribution in the transport sector. CO2 emissions at the provincial level are greatly varied because of the different economic development stages and natural conditions (Table 4 and Fig. 2). The eastern coastal provinces have higher CO2 emissions in transport sector than those in the western inland regions. However, some eastern provinces, such as Anhui and Jiangxi, also have lower emissions levels, whereas among western provinces, Xinjiang has a relatively high level of CO2 emission. Guangdong remains largest transport CO2 emitter in China, reaching to 46.91 Mt. The main reason for this is that Guangdong is a coastal province and featured with intensive economic activities that cause the volume of road, water, and air transportation keeping in high level. Qinghai is amid all provinces with the smallest CO2 emissions at approximately 1.34 Mt. Tibet’s tourism industry is well-developed, and thus its air and road transportation are relatively higher than Qinghai, although its economic level remained lowest in China. CO2 emissions from air transportation covered a relatively large proportion in total transport emissions in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hainan. CO2 emissions from water transportation covered a relatively large proportion in coastal provinces, such as Shanghai, Zhejiang, and Guangdong. The share of rail CO2 emissions in the total transport sector emissions was relatively high in some inner provinces such as: Hebei, Henan, and Liaoning. CO2 emissions in road transportation have exceeded 95% in total transport emissions in Tibet, Jilin, Yunnan, and Inner Mongolia (Table 3). In Table 4, the modal mix for CO2 emission in transport sector among China, the international society, and selected countries were compared. The road was overwhelmingly the main contributor of CO2 emission in transport sector; it accounted for up to

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B. Cai et al. / Energy Policy 41 (2012) 474–483

Modal share of China

Aviation 5.14%

Road 86.32%

Water 5.49% Helongjiang

Rail 3.05%

Inner Mongolia

Jilin Liaoning

Xinjiang Beijing Gansu

Tianjin Shanxi

Ningxia

Hebei

Qinghai

Shandong Shanaxi

Henan Jiangsu

Tibet

Hubei Sichuan

Shanghai Anhui Zhejiang Jiangxi

Chongqing

China provincial transport

Hunan

CO2 emissions (Mt)

Modal mix in terms of CO2 1.34 – 4.30 emissions 4.31 – 8.40 9.50Mt 8.41 – 12.22 Road 12.23 – 17.46 Rail 17.47 – 26.77 26.78 – 46.91

Yunnan

Aviation Water

Data not available

Guizhou

Fujian Taiwan

Guangxi

Guangdong

Hainan

Fig. 2. Spatial distribution of CO2 emissions from the transport sector in the provinces and modal share of China.

94.17% of the total transport sector CO2 emissions in the European Union. The U.S. has an intensive domestic aviation, and thus its road transport share was lower, at about 85.33%. In China, water and rail contributed higher proportion of CO2 emissions compared with other countries. 4.2. Comparative analysis of two methods for estimating CO2 emissions in road transportation CO2 emission for road transportation is 86.32% in China’s transport sector and because of the reasons we discussed above, the road transportation CO2 emissions is difficult to estimate. Because the VKT method is the mainstreaming method adopted for estimating CO2 emissions in road transportation (Wang et al., 2007; He et al., 2005), so our study used VKT method as well for estimating fuel consumption in road transportation in 2007 (when estimating CO2 emissions from gasoline and diesel consumption, sold/consumed fuel method has same effect as VKT method), and compared the results with those from sold/consumed fuel method. Fig. 3 compared the results of road transportation fuel consumption derived from these two methods. Obviously, the disparities at provincial level are large, and

generally the results of VKT method is 68% and 73% higher than what sold/consumed fuel method did for gasoline and diesel respectively. Oriented by data sources, we adopted ‘‘bottom-up’’ VKT method to estimate 287 cities (4 municipalities directly under the central government and 283 prefecture-level cities) one by one, each city using the basis of 28 sub-categories we concluded above. But we still believed that the results from VKT method existed significant deviation, particularly the fuel consumption/ 100 km and mileages are the major uncertainties. The sold/ consumed fuel method is more concise and direct for estimating in the scenario of monopolized gasoline and diesel ‘produce-sale’ chain in China. So sold/consumed method has relatively less uncertainty compared with VKT for estimating CO2 emissions method both in national and regional level. 4.3. Potential driving-forces of China transport sector CO2 emissions Timilsina and Shrestha (2009) indicated that GDP and per capita GDP are the important factors influencing CO2 emissions in transport sector. If we use CO2 emissions in transport sector of the different regions (provinces) to replace time series data, then the

B. Cai et al. / Energy Policy 41 (2012) 474–483

relationship between the transport CO2 emissions and GDP and per capita GDP could be analyzed on the spatial level. As shown in Fig. 4, the relationship between the transport CO2 emissions and GDP is statistically significant (R2 ¼0.811) and stronger than that between transport CO2 emissions and per capita GDP, which is virtually insignificant (R2 ¼0.214). This is because the main driving-forces of transport CO2 emissions are industrial and economic activity rather than household incomes. China’s economic development fundamentally depends on industrial production, export, and infrastructure construction, rather than resident consumption. For instance, the per capita GDP in Guangdong is lower than Beijing, Shanghai, Zhejiang, and some other provinces, but its CO2 emissions from the transport sector are the highest nationwide. The per capita GDP in Tianjin is higher than China’s average level, but its CO2 emission in transport sector is relatively low. The strong correlation between transport CO2 emissions and regional GDP generally demonstrates that CO2 emissions from the transport sector in China are mainly driven by the intensity of the production activities rather than the consumption activities.

Table 3 Modal mix for CO2 emissions (Mt) from the transport sector in the provinces of China in 2007. Province Beijing Tianjin Hebei Shanxi Inner Mongolia Liaoning Jilin Heilongjiang Shanghai Jiangsu Zhejiang Anhui Fujian Jiangxi Shandong Henan Hubei Hunan Guangdong Guangxi Hainan Chongqing Sichuan Guizhou Yunnan Tibet Shaanxi Gansu Qinghai Ningxia Xinjiang Total

Road

Rail

Aviation

Water

Total

10.12 6.85 15.30 7.20 15.72 23.03 10.12 13.91 12.42 19.66 20.60 6.97 11.25 6.76 32.65 11.94 19.95 13.38 40.59 11.98 1.65 6.96 12.43 5.32 11.71 1.91 11.25 3.70 1.24 2.26 7.76

0.32 0.25 1.60 0.67 0.72 0.75 0.31 0.52 0.04 0.32 0.26 0.58 0.13 0.50 0.71 1.14 0.53 0.69 0.32 0.41 0.00 0.10 0.38 0.32 0.18 0.01 0.54 0.54 0.07 0.10 0.31

4.25 0.15 0.04 0.18 0.09 2.24 0.12 0.34 4.39 0.17 0.60 0.12 0.47 0.07 0.41 0.18 0.29 0.20 3.89 0.54 0.81 0.25 1.13 0.29 0.33 0.04 0.37 0.06 0.03 0.04 0.32

0.00 0.57 0.52 0.00 0.00 0.75 0.00 0.01 5.88 1.66 5.00 0.66 1.93 0.14 0.85 0.13 0.70 0.29 2.12 0.43 1.12 1.05 0.09 0.02 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

14.69 7.83 17.46 8.05 16.53 26.77 10.55 14.78 22.73 21.80 26.45 8.33 13.79 7.48 34.62 13.38 21.48 14.56 46.91 13.35 3.59 8.37 14.03 5.95 12.22 1.96 12.17 4.30 1.34 2.40 8.40

376.61

13.32

22.41

23.94

436.29

479

It is generally accepted that CO2 emissions in road transportation are significantly affected by the income of the residents because private cars comprise the majority of vehicles and car ownership increases with the increase in people’s income. However, according to our statistical analysis at the provincial level, CO2 emissions from road transportation were loosely associated with the income of residents (R2 ¼0.147) and closely associated with GDP (R2 ¼0.794, Fig. 5). Thus, private cars may not be the only main CO2 emission source. Trucks, taxis, company-owned vehicles, and government-owned vehicles may contribute significantly to the total CO2 emission in road transportation. We also undertook the analysis of CO2 emission in transport sector and road transportation with population, Fig. 6 indicating that there is no strong tendency of relevance, which proves that CO2 emission in Chin’s transport sector has strong connection with intensity of economic activities rather than population. Fig. 7 has compared CO2 emissions/GDP in transport sector among all the provinces, there is no specific rule observed and/or identified. Some relative large emitter like Shandong and Guangdong provinces present low level of CO2 emissions/GDP, but some poor provinces like Hainan and Tibet have a higher level. This observation cannot be simply explained by transport technology well-developed in higher emission level areas or less-developed in lower emission level areas, because GDP is affected by many factors, and currently in China, GDP is mainly driven by export and production sectors much more than transport sector. Table 5 compared China with rest of the world in emissions per capita in transport sector, we can obviously observe that the emissions per capita in China is quite low, approximately one third of average level in the world and only 12% of developed countries (Annex 1), far below the EU and US levels. These comparisons indicated that if China duplicates the transportation development mode of developed countries, the CO2 emissions in transport sector will grow rapidly. Meanwhile Table 5 indicated that there is no specific rule presented when we selected CO2 emissions per GDP as an indicator for comparison.

5. Policy initiatives for low carbon transportation So far Chinese government has not yet clarified its own strategy for low carbon transportation and only very few policies have ever been issued specifically for reducing CO2 emissions in transport sector. But China has some other relevant policies, which contributed on emissions reduction in transport sector. China has proposed policies and incentive packages in the field of fuel-economy, alternative fuel and electric vehicles for encouraging energy-saving in transport sector. These efforts would result in CO2 emission reduction in transport sector. Limits of fuel consumption for passenger cars, GB19578-2004 took effects since 1st of July 2005, which aims to regulate fuel-economy of the newly produced passenger cars. This regulation has planned two implementation stages. The first stage started from the 1st of July 2005 for regulating fuel efficiency of new types of vehicles and after one year transition

Table 4 Comparison of the modal mix for CO2 emissions from the transport sector between China and the international society. CO2 emission ratio (%)

Global (IEA, 2009b)

Annex 1 (UNFCCC, 2010) (%)

EU-15 (European Environment Agency, 2010) (%)

Japan (The Government of Japan, 2010) (%)

United States (U.S.EPA, 2010) (%)

China

Road Aviation Water Rail

72.81

88.93 6.25 2.77 2.05

94.17 2.62 2.54 0.67

90.04 4.57 5.12 0.27

85.33 9.23 2.93 2.51

86.32 5.14 5.49 3.05

27.19

Note: Annex I refers to the Annex I countries under the Kyoto Protocol.

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Hainan Qinghai Tibet Ningxia Guizhou Chonagqing Tianjin Shanghai Gansu Jiangxi Xinjiang Guangxi Fujian Yunnan Jilin Neimenggu Anhui Hunan Hubei Shaanxi Heilongjiang Shanxi Beijing Liaoning Zhejiang Jiangsu Sichuan Henan Hebei Shandong Guangdong

Sold/consumed fuel method VKT method

0

1

2

3

4 5 Gasoline comsupiton(Mt)

6

7

8

9

Fig. 3. Comparison of results of gasoline consumption in transport sector based on two methods.

Fig. 4. Correlation between transport CO2 emissions and per capita GDP/GDP.

period it will in charge the old types of vehicles as well. The second stage took effects from the 1st of January 2008 for new types of vehicles and also after one year transition period it will in charge the old types of vehicles. This regulation effectively promotes the fueleconomy of passengers’ car in China. During its first stage, the fuel consumption of passengers’ cars has dropped 11.5% by 2006 compared with the 2002 level (National Technical Committee on Road Vehicles of Standardization Administration, 2008). In 2001, China has published two important criteria: Denatured fuel-ethanol GB18350-2001 and Vehicle-based ethanol gasoline GB18351-2001; According to Feng (2009), so far China has issued about 40 criteria related to alternative vehicle fuels, and there are

at least 10 provinces, which have introduced and popularized ethanol gasoline and other alternative fuels for vehicles. At the same time, Chinese governments highly encouraged development of electric vehicles. In 2009, China has launched its pioneer project the so-called ‘‘Ten cities, One thousand cars’’. It introduced Hybrid Power Vehicles and Electric Vehicles to be used as taxis or public buses in 13 selected cities national wide. But according to Huo et al. (2010), under the circumstances of China’s coal based electricity supply, electric vehicles may cause 7.3% more CO2 emissions compared with conventional vehicles. Therefore considering 80.5% of electricity supply from coal combustion in China in 2008 (Department of Energy Statistics of

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Fig. 5. Correlation between road transportation CO2 emissions and per capita disposable income of urban residents and GDP.

Fig. 6. Correlation between transport/road transport CO2 emissions and population.

National Bureau of Statistics, 2009), the development of electric vehicles needs cautious consideration. China has also adopted tax instruments for boosting energysaving in the transport sector. Because fuel tax is also another important economic instrument for guiding consumers’ behaviors and further reducing fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. Since 1st of January 2009, the new fuel tax was introduced to replace transportation related fees, which include toll charge, water channel maintenance fee, road transportation management fee, passenger and freight transportation services fee, water transportation management fee, and water passenger and freight transportation fee. And the new tax-related policy raised gasoline consumption tax from 0.2 to 1 CNY per liter and diesel consumption tax from 0.1 to 0.8 CNY per liter. In fact, fuel tax is a kind of direct tax that obeys Polluter Pays Principle (PPP) and specifically designed for suppressing increased private vehicles. In February 2011, China has ratified Vehicles and Vessels Tax Law, which announced that from the 1st of January 2012 all vehicles and vessels will impose the property tax based on cylinder capacity. Passenger vehicles (with capacity of 1.0 l or under 1.0 l) will charge 60–360 CNY per vehicle, passenger vehicles (with capacity of 4.0 l or over 4.0 l) will charge 3600–5400 CNY per vehicle. The tax rate will increase depending upon cylinder capacity. This rule looks quite similar with vehicle carbon tax in some EU countries. If we convert this tax into carbon tax under the condition of 160 g/km CO2 emission, the vehicles tax is about 11 CNY/ton CO2 in equivalent of carbon tax. In general, because CO2 emission in transport sector shared relatively small percentage of overall CO2 emission in China, and the management of transport sector involved several ministries (The Ministry of Transport responsible for road planning,

infrastructure construction, water and air transportation; The Ministry of Railway responsible for railway transportation; The Ministry of Public Security responsible for vehicles registration and traffic management; National Reform and Development Commission (NRDC) responsible for vehicle and fuel price). So CO2 emission in transport sector has not been paid enough attentions by decision-makers compared with many specific policies already issued for power, cement, and iron steel sectors.

6. Conclusions This paper attempts to determine a clear image of CO2 emissions in China’s transport sector in 2007, as well as present its regional pattern, based on sold/consumed fuel method. The results indicated that the IEA’s estimate of China’s transport CO2 emission (excluding Hong Kong) and the share of road transportation CO2 emissions in 2007 are underestimated. CO2 emissions in road transport sector from our study are 37% higher than IEA’s conclusion. The transport CO2 emissions at the provincial level are also calculated based on a hybrid approach. We also adopted vehicle kilometers traveled (VKT) method for estimating fuel consumption of road transportation, comparative analysis suggested that gasoline and diesel consumption based on VKT method is 68% and 73% higher than sold/consumed fuel method, respectively. According to our results, VKT method faces lacking of data and many uncertainties, which may cause inaccurate estimation of China’s CO2 emissions in transport sector. Because this article mainly aims to calculate overall CO2 emissions in China’s transport sector, therefore we have not adopted VKT method. But VKT method is also very meaningful

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Jiangsu Henan Aanhui Hebei Shandong Sichuan Jiangxi Shanxi Zhejiang Fujian Guangdong Tianjin Beijing Hunan Gansu Qinghai Shanghai Jilin Chongqing Helongjiang Guizhou Shaaxi Guangxi Hubei Xinjiang Liaoning Yunnan Ningxia Neimeggu Hainan Tibet

Countrywide average

0.1

0

0.2

0.3

Transport sector CO2 emissions / GDP (t CO2 /104

0.4

0.5

0.6

(2007 prices))

Fig. 7. Transport sector CO2 emissions/GDP.

Table 5 China and other specified countries or regions in emissions of transport sector per capita and per GDP emission in 2007. Source: IEA (2009a).

Global Annex 1 EU-27 Japan United States China

Per capita emissions in transport sector (kg CO2/capita)

Transport sector CO2 emissions/GDP(kg CO2/US dollar (2000 prices))

1004 2846 1941 1874 5983 330

0.168 0.124 0.098 0.046 0.158 0.183

Note: Annex I refers to the Annex I countries under the Kyoto Protocol; GDP calculated by using the exchange rates, CO2 emission of China’s transport sector based on this study, other data sources from IEA (2009a).

in predicting future emission scenarios and understanding the deep reason of CO2 emission in transport sector. So we would significantly improve the understanding of CO2 emission in China’s transport sector if we could combine the results of sold/ consumed fuel method and VKT method together. This article has also preliminarily analyzed driving-forces of CO2 emissions on regional level, which indicated that transport sector CO2 emissions is strongly associated with the intensity of economic activities rather than per capita GDP, per capita disposable income of urban residents, and population size. Global transport CO2 emissions in 2007 accounted for 23% of the total CO2 emissions from fuel combustion. Transport CO2 emissions in OECD countries accounted for 27% of fuel combustion CO2 emissions (IEA, 2009a). In China, this share was just 7%, based on our estimation of CO2 emissions in transport sector and the IEA estimation of China’s fuel combustion emissions. That means the transport sector in China

is a CO2 emissions source with large potential. In fact, from 1994 to 2007, CO2 emissions in China’s transport sector increased by 160%, higher than the fuel combustion emissions growth of 118% in the same period. CO2 emissions in the transport sector are already one of the biggest concerns for developed countries and as well as a key area for emission abatement (OECD, 2007). But compared with coal power, cement, and iron steel sectors, the Chinese government has paid less attention on CO2 emissions in transport sector and overlooked the potential of its rapid growth. Although China has proposed many policies, which would benefit for CO2 emissions reduction in transport sector, but China still lacks a comprehensive plan guiding the low carbon transport development. Therefore, China needs to propose a systematic and comprehensive emissions abatement policy package in the transport sector in terms of transport mode, fuel type, and engine efficiency based on the understanding of the transport CO2 emissions both on the national and regional level.

Acknowledgment We sincerely thank anonymous referees for their review of this paper. The recommendation and opinion of Professor Jiang Kejun in Energy Research Institute of National Development and Reform Commission, is highly appreciated. The view expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning. References China Transport Yearbook Editorial Department, 2008. China Transport Yearbook 2008. China Transport Yearbook Press, Beijing.

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