Study of county-level low-carbon standards in China based on carbon emissions per capita

ABSTRACT

Low-carbon development is an essential measure to combat climate change, and the establishment of low-carbon standards is an important means to achieve low-carbon development. Due to the differences in size and development level among counties of China, the applicability and fairness of county-level low-carbon standards are very important in this country. This study analyzed the trends of county-level carbon emissions in China, defined the peak value of carbon emissions per capita, summarized the characteristics of existing low-carbon standards, and proposed a fair county-level low-carbon standard based on carbon emissions per capita. The results of our analysis suggest that, under the constraints of carbon emissions reduction policies, China’s carbon emissions per capita will tend towards a stable range. Additionally, by referring to predictions results of the peak value of China’s carbon emissions per capita, it was determined that, in low-carbon development targets, China’s county-level carbon emissions per capita should be set within the range of 2–4 tons. Besides setting low-carbon standards, the Chinese government and private enterprises should develop low-carbon technologies as soon as possible and innovate management models to achieve the win–win situation of simultaneous economic growth and carbon emissions reduction.

KEYWORDS:

• County-level carbon emissions
• low-carbon standards
• carbon emissions per capita
• low-carbon development
• carbon emissions controlling

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFC0704703,2016YFC0502902) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71533003).