PAPER JUNE 2018 ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES High-resolution Carbon Emissions Data for Chinese Cities Zhu Liu Bofeng CaiEnvironment and Natural Resources Program Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs Harvard Kennedy School 79 JFK Street Cambridge, MA 02138 www.belfercenter.org/ENRP The authors of this report invites use of this ination for educational purposes, requiring only that the reproduced material clearly cite the full source Liu, Zhu and Cai, Bofeng “High-resolution Emission Data for Chinese Cities. ” Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Cambridge, Mass Harvard University, June 2018 Statements and views expressed in this report are solely those of the authors and do not imply endorsement by Harvard University, the Harvard Kennedy School, or the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Design and layout by Andrew Facini Cover photo Smoke rises above the skyline of Beijing on a moderately polluted day, Saturday, Aug. 26, 2017 . AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein Copyright 2018, President and Fellows of Harvard College Printed in the United States of AmericaENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES PAPER JUNE 2018 High-resolution Carbon Emissions Data for Chinese Cities Zhu Liu Bofeng Caiii High-resolution Carbon Emissions Data for Chinese Cities About the Project The Environment and Natural Resources Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs is at the center of the Harvard Kennedy School’s research and outreach on public policy that affects global environ- ment quality and natural resource management. Its mandate is to conduct policy-relevant research at the regional, national, international, and global level, and through its outreach initiatives to make its products available to decision-makers, scholars, and interested citizens. More ination can be found on ENRP’s web site at www.belfercenter. org/enrp or from assistant director, Amanda Sardonis amanda_sardonis hks.harvard.edu at ENRP , Harvard Kennedy School, 79 JFK Street, Cam- bridge, MA 02138 USA. Acknowledgements This research was primarily conducted while the author was an Associate in the Environment and Natural Resources Program and the Energy Tech- nology Innovation Policy Research Group of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. Support from the Jassim Jaidah Director’s Fund gratefully acknowledged. The authors also thank Zhenyu Wang for helping with editing the figures. The authors thank Senior Lecturer Henry Lee for providing support, guid- ance, and advice and Wei Peng for her comments on earlier drafts.iii Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs | Harvard Kennedy School About the Authors Dr. Zhu Liu is an Associate at the Environment and Natural Resources Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. His research focuses on global sustainability accounting and low carbon energy transition. Zhu is contributing to collaborative work with the Initiative on Sustainable Energy Development in China led by Senior Lecturer in Public Policy Henry Lee. He conducted his Doctoral study in Ecology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences CAS and graduated with CAS highest honor CAS Presidential Special Award. Zhu received his Ph.D. from CAS 2013 with joint training by the University of Cambridge 2012. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Geology from Northwest University 2007 and a Master’s degree in Ecology from China Agricultural University 2009. His research on energy and climate has been published in Nature, Nature Cli- mate Change, PNAS, and other professional journals. Dr. Bofeng Cai has special expertise in the GHG emissions inventory of energy use, Industrial Processes and Product Use IPPU and landfill, waste water treatment, etc. He was one of the Lead Authors of IPCC 2013 Sup- plementary s and Good Practice Guidance Arising from the Kyoto Protocol in 2012, and one of the Coordinating Lead Author CLA of IPCC 2019 Refinement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories. Dr. Cai is mainly focused on city carbon emissions and high-res- olution carbon dioxide emission gridded data of China.v Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs | Harvard Kennedy School Table of Contents cutive Summary .1 1. Background of CO 2emissions data from Chinese cities 2 2. Data Sources . 5 3. Results . 7 4. Discussion and Policy Suggestions 14 5. ology .17 5.1 Emissions categories and inventory scopes .17 5.2 Scope 1 emissions calculation .17 5.3 Scope 2 emissions calculation 19 6. Carbon emissions data from 288 Chinese cities 20 References 28Cover Image Smoke rises above the skyline of Beijing on a moderately polluted day, Saturday, Aug. 26, 2017 . AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein1 Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs | Harvard Kennedy School cutive Summary China is currently the world’s largest energy consumer and CO 2emitter, and its cities contribute 85 of the total CO 2emissions in China. Given the magnitude and growth rate of Chinese cities’ carbon emissions, cities are considered to be the key areas for implement- ing policies designed to adapt to climate change and mitigate CO 2emissions. In this research, we used high-resolution CO 2emissions data data from China High-Resolution Emission Gridded Database CHRED at 1 km spatial resolution from 288 Chinese cities. There were, in total, 9,723 million metric tons MMT CO 2produced in 2012 from the 288 cities. The results show that the 288 cities had variable per capita emissions and emission intensities; both low-carbon and carbon intensive cities exist in urban China. The CO 2per capita for these 288 cities was 11 tCO 2 /person, which is lower than the US average, but higher than that of the European Union. The per capita CO 2emissions were weakly related with the per capita GDP in the 288 cities, indicat- ing that there was no environmental Kuznets pattern for the carbon emissions related to a city’s level of economic development in China. The research implies that urbanization may be low-carbon or carbon intensive for China. Thus, promoting a low-carbon transition for Chi- nese cities is critical for global greenhouse gas mitigation. 2 High-resolution Carbon Emissions Data for Chinese Cities 1. Background of CO 2emissions data from Chinese cities The urbanization process in China and technology developments in the United States are considered to be the main forces shaping the world in the 21st century. City development is the major driver of China’s economy, with 50 of China’s GDP growth in the past 10 years contributed by infra- structure investments associated with the urbanization process. Presently, cities account for 75 of China’s total GDP and 80 of its national energy consumption. The urbanization rate in China is expected to reach 75 in 2030, which is considered by some scholars to be the main driving force for China’s leadership in the world, after the United States, in terms of total economic volume. Urbanization in China reallocated approximately 200 million people into urban areas, and these processes are expected to relo- cate more than 300 million people to China’s cities over the next 15 years. Nearly 70 of the population will live in urban areas by 2035. It is expected that in the next 20 years, China will build approximately 50,000 new sky- scrapers in its urban areas, which will require considerable infrastructure development and energy consumption in urban China. The urbanization process in China is critical for protecting the global environment. China has already become the world’s top fossil fuel energy consumer and CO 2emitter and has pered intensive studies on the features, characteristics and driving factors of its carbon emissions and mitigation actions. As the world’s largest developing country, with unprec- edented urbanization, industrialization and poverty elimination processes, China has been and will continue to be the major force behind anthropo- genic carbon emissions and their mitigation. Concrete emission inventories are considered to be the cornerstone for emissions research and mitigation strategies for cities. However, challenges remain in regard to presenting comprehensive carbon emission inventories at the city level; to measuring, reporting and verifying inventories; and to minimizing the associated uncertainties. This is particularly difficult in a large country with significant geographical and social-economic diver- sity, such as China, because producing comprehensive carbon emission 3 Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs | Harvard Kennedy School inventories requires very detailed carbon accounting for each city as well as a comprehensive understanding of local climate strategies. The - ology and associated inventories for CO 2emissions have been developed at the national scale. Compared with nation states, cities have various defi- nitions regarding their boundaries and non-centralized statistics as well as large discrepancies regarding the definitions of their economic develop- ment levels, which produce uncertainty for carbon emissions accounting, especially in developing countries, such as China. For example, in China, the city is the second level of an administration area the province is the first level and not only includes urban areas but also vast rural areas; there are 286 administration cities in China. Thus, the administrative boundary of a Chinese city is larger than that of a city in developed countries, where only urban areas are included in a city’s boundary. In addition, cities have various definitions of the boundaries regarding emissions accounting and non-centralized statistics as well as large discrep- ancies in regard to defining the levels of economic development, producing uncertainty for carbon emission accounting. System scope boundaries sig- nificantly affect regional emission inventories. Researchers have generally assumed a closed system boundary when conducting regional emission inventories; however, the reality is that regions have intensive interactions across calculated boundaries administrative boundaries, such as domestic and international transportation and purchased power supply, generated outside the boundary. These cross-boundary activities can dramatically affect emission estimates and the distribution of associated mitigation responsibilities. The academic literature has defined the territorial direct emission boundary as scope 1, the boundary of the emission caused by purchased electricity produced outside the boundary as scope 2, and the boundary of the emission embodied in imported products and services as scope 3. By further balancing the emissions embodied in imports and exports, the emission inventory boundary, which is considered to be the emissions embodied in imports but to exclude that of exports, is defined as consumption emissions. Whether such embodied emissions are taken into account will dramatically affect the emissions inventory at the city level. Finally, but most importantly, as a developing country, China’s statistics system is not as comprehensive as that of developed countries. Regional 4 High-resolution Carbon Emissions Data for Chinese Cities statistics have comparatively more uncertainty than those at the national level and lack sectoral ination, making it more difficult to conduct China’s cities’ CO 2inventories. There are a few main studies that have con- ducted a “bottom-up” see s CO 2emission inventory in Chinese cities; however the number of studies and sectoral ination is limited. High-resolution emission data contribute to solving such challenges. Carbon accounting from high-resolution emission data is a key research direction in the field of climate change. There is a focus on analyzing the extent, as well as the causes and effects, of CO 2emissions at a fine scale. Understanding emissions at the city and regional levels according to high spatial resolution CO 2emissions data has been highlighted in the carbon management literature. In this study, we established a comprehensive and systematic city-level CO 2emission data system in China based on the China High-Resolution Emis- sion Gridded Database CHRED 1 km spatial resolution, and we further analyzed the characteristics of the total and per capita city emissions. We focused on prefecture-level cities and municipalities that are directly under China’s central government. According to the “2013 China Statistical Y ear- book” , there were 285 prefecture-level cities and 4 municipalities in China in 2012. The CHRED database does not include Sansha City founded in 2012. Therefore, this study included 288 cities covering 284 prefec- ture-level cities and 4 municipalities.5 Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs | Harvard Kennedy School 2. Data Sources We considered CO 2emissions from scope 1 direct and scope 2 indirect emissions from imported electricity, and the direct CO 2emissions data of cities were derived from CHRED see the ology section for details. CHRED was developed for China using a bottom-up approach based on point emission sources and other supporting data. CHRED 2.0 provides a 1 km grid- ded dataset of CO 2emissions in China during 2012 Figure 1. Detailed ination on CHRED can be found at http// and in pre- vious publications Cai et al. 2016; Cai Wang et al. 2014. Figure 1. Spatial map of CO 2emissions in China in 20126 High-resolution Carbon Emissions Data for Chinese CitiesThe indirect emissions of a city are calculated by multiplying the volume of imported electricity by the emission factor of the city see the ology section for details. Electricity generation data from fossil fuel power plants for each city were obtained from CHRED. Data regarding electricity gen- eration from non-fossil fuel power plants for each city were from the 2012 Power Industry Statistics China Electricity Council, 2016. Total electricity consumption data for each city were obtained from the China City Statisti- cal Y earbook Department of Urban Socioeconomic Investigation, 2014.7 Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs | Harvard Kennedy School 3. Results Calculating the carbon emissions from 288 Chinese cities Figure 2 based on the bottom-up carbon emission inventories, the total emissions from 288 cities is 9,723 MMT CO 2for administrative boundary scope 1 emis- sions and 933 MMT CO 2for scope 2 emissions. The aggregated CO 2emissions from 288 cities is even higher than the total emissions from the United States the second largest emitter and is equivalent to China’s total carbon emissions. The results show that 288 cities have varied per capita emissions and emission intensities. Cities could have high levels of emis- sions per capita and low levels of GDP per capita, and vice versa. The results indica