Volume 7: Urban Energy Systems: Building, Transport, Environment, Industry, and Integration

Accounting for Beijing’s Electricity-Related Carbon Emissions from Multiple Perspectives and Comparing Temporal Trends Pengfei Zhang, Jiawen Miao, Wendong Wei*

Abstract

The city and power sectors are major contributors to global carbon emissions. However, there is insufficient research on carbon emission accounting of the urban power sector, and electricity-related carbon emission flows through regional trade are ignored. Using the IPCC method, the network approach and the multiregional input-output model, our study quantifies Beijing’s production-based, supply-based, and consumption based electricity-related carbon emissions between 2007 and 2012. The results show the following. (1) Both supply-based and consumption-based electricity-related carbon emissions were more than three times that of production-based electricity-related carbon emissions. (2) Beijing’s production-based electricity-related carbon emissions fell by 4.6% (from 1.73E+07 tons in 2007 to 1.65E+07 tons in 2012), while the supply-based and consumption-based electricity-related carbon emissions increased by 29.4% (from 5.95E+07 tons in 2007 to 7.70E+07 tons in 2012) and 7.3% (from 6.88E+07 tons in 2007 to 7.38E+07 tons in 2012), respectively. (3) The electricity produced locally in Beijing became cleaner (the carbon emission intensity of electricity Beijing produced decreased from 0.76 kg/kWh to 0.57 kg/kWh), but the carbon emission intensity of the electricity Beijing actually used after buying electricity from other provinces increased (the supplied-based carbon emission intensity increased from 0.88 kg/kWh to 0.91 kg/kWh). This study provides a framework for accounting for the electricity-related carbon emissions of different aspects of the city, which can help to allocate the environmental responsibilities between regions and improve the efficiency of China’s emission reduction policies.

Keywords Beijing, power sector, electricity-related; carbon emission, multiple perspective, multiregional input-output model