Greenhouse gas emissions from key infrastructure sectors in larger and smaller Chinese cities: method development and benchmarking

Figures & data

Table 1. Emission factors associated with use and producing service in each infrastructure sector.

Infrastructure sectors
Non-electricity energy	Coal/coke and oil products	Varies with energy type ^†
Electricity	Beijing and QHD (ton CO2e/MWh)	0	1.096^‡
	Xiamen (ton CO2e/MWh)		0.777^‡
	Yixing (ton CO2e/MWh)		0.788^‡
Transportation	Gasoline (kgCO2e/TJ)	69551 ^†	20443 ^§
	Diesel (kgCO2e/TJ)	74351 ^†	19893 ^§
Treated water energy intensity	Electricity intensity (kWh/ton)	0.25 ^¶	N/A
Wastewater energy intensity	Electricity intensity (kWh/ton)	24.3 ^¶	N/A
Municipal waste	Landfill (ton CO2e/ton)	1.52 ^#	N/A
	Incineration (ton CO2e/ton)	− 0.62 ^#	N/A
Construction material	Cement (energy + calcining) (ton CO2e/ton cement)	0	0.683 ^††
Food	Food supply chain	Varies based on food products^‡‡

^†[33]. For detailed information, see Appendix Table A1.

^‡[54].

^§Calculated by data in the study done by [37].

^¶Interview with local officers [42,44].

^#This value is the mid-point of life-cycle carbon intensity value. The electricity recovered from waster incineration markes this value negative from a life-cycle perspective, according to the resarch done by Hong et al. [34].

^††[36].

^‡‡[55,56]. For detailed information, see Appendix Table A2.

Table 2. Data source of infrastructure use, local production and the energy efficiency associated with local production, separated by sector in four cities.

Infrastructure use
		Beijing Municipality (same as province)	Xiamen Sub-provincial city	Qinhuangdao Prefecture-level city	Vising County city
Energy (coal/fuel/gas)	Industrial activities Commercial activities Household	CSY -Beijing	At city-scale, energy balance sheet is	CSY-Qinhuangdao Down scale from provincial-level energy balance sheet	CSY-Yixing Down scale from CSY-Wuxi
Electricity	Industrial/commercial activities Household			CSY-Qinhuangdao Down scale from provincial level energy balance sheet	CSY-Yixing
Transportation	Public transit Private cars	National Transportation Statistical Yearbook Beijing Transport Report		CSY-Qinhuangdao
Water supply/wastewater treatment		CSY -Beijing	CSY -Xiamen
Municipal solid waste
Food					Down scale from CSY-Wuxi
Cement		Beijing Construction Report	Top-down	Top-down	Top-down
Local production
		Beijing Municipality (same as province)	Xiamen Sub-provincial city	Qinhuangdao Prefecture-level city	Yiring County city
Electricity		CSY -Beijing	CSY -Xiamen	CSY -Qinhuangdao	CSY-Yixing
Water supply/wastewater treatment
Municipal solid waste
Food
Cement
Energy intensity of local production
		Beijing Municipality (same as province)	Xiamen Sub-provincial city	Qinhuangdao Prefecture-level city	Yixing County city
Electricity		CSY -Beijing	At city scale, energy balance sheet is created by previous research group	Down scale from provincial level energy balance sheet	Down scale from CSY-Wuxi
Water supply/wastewater treatment				Interview local officers	Interview local officers
Municipal solid waste			National average	National average	National average
Food
Cement

CSY = City Statistical Yearbook.

Table 3. Demographic and community-wide energy and material use organized by different infrastructure sectors (industrial, commercial, and household), when breakdown is possible.

Type		Unit	Beijing	Xiamen	QHD	Yixing
Demographic information^†
Population		Millions	19.61	3.53	2.99	1.08
Urbanization	Urbanization by population (%)		86.0	88.3	47.5	55.2
Geographic area		km^2	16411	1573	7523	1362
Economy	Total GDP	Billion yuan	1411	206	93	109
	GDP of secondary industry	Billion yuan	338 (24%)	102 (50%)	37 (40%)	58 (53%)
	GDP of tertiary industries	Billion yuan	1060 (75%)	101 (49%)	44 (47%)	46 (42%)
	GDP/capita^‡	Yuan/capita	71953	58338	31182	100862
by infrastructure sectors
Non-electricity energy use	Industrial sector	TJ	315699	140802	163119	143738
	Commercial sector	TJ	80439	2653	15843	3716
	Agricultural sector	TJ	14357	6617	19292	n/a
	Households	TJ	73303	8839	13337	2728
Electricity use	Industrial sector	GWh	27970	8542	7403	6636
	Commercial sector	GWh	34530	3460	748	681
	Agricultural sector	GWh	1689	127	639	81
	Households	GWh	13933	3057	1138	870
Transportation	Private car	TJ	195853	12852	19299	8112
	Vehicle ownership	Thousand vehicles	3566	285	237	128
	Public transit	TJ	28400	9257	1687	962
	Aircraft	TJ	171330	23124	n/a	n/a
	Other trans-boundary transportation	TJ	23493	51165	n/a	7546
Water supply/wastewater treatment	Water use amount	Million tons	1555	317	103	50
	Wastewater treatment amount	Million tons	1416	221	92	40
Municipal solid waste	Total treatment amount	Million tons	6.34	0.95	0.37	0.24
Construction material	Cement use amount	Million tons	20.6	3.7	4.3	1.7
Food use	Food use amount	Some cities report expenditure, and other reports physical amount

GDP: Gross domestic product; QHD: Qinhuangdao.

^†Data come from the National Statistical Yearbook [57], Beijing Statistical Yearbook [27], Xiamen Statistical Yearbook [28], Qinhuangdao Statistical Yearbook [29] and Wuxi Statistical Yearbook [30].

^‡GDP per capita can be calculated by dividing either the permanent population or the registered Hukou population. Except for Beijing's population, the population data for cities are the Hukou-registered populations.

Figure 1. Pie charts of total CIF^GHG for Chinese cities of different size. The trans-boundary contributions are shown as hatched areas for each infrastructure sector. For some sectors, such as water supply/wastewater treatment, their contribution to total CIF is less than 1%, and the labels for these sectors are not shown in the pie chart. WTP: wells-to-pump; WS/WWT: water supply and wastewater treatment; MSW: municipal solid waste.

Figure 2. The proportion of GHG emissions from energy end use in four Chinese cities. The coal and related products’ end use is energy used in non-power plant sectors. All cities produce and import electricity for use, as shown in light blue. IB: in-boundary; TB: trans-boundary.

Figure 3. Benchmarks: metrics of material/energy use efficiency of infrastructure sectors in four Chinese cities. GDP: gross domestic product; QHD: Qinhuangdao.

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