Urban Residents' Carbon Capability And Its Driving Mechanism

As a basic national policy of our country,low carbon emissions policy has become a society-wide consensus.With the improvement of people's living standard,compared with the carbon emission reduction in the production process,the importance of which in the consumption side has on low carbon and becomes more and more obvious.Especially in eastern China,the dense population and high level of economic development in recent years have caused residential energy consumption and carbon emissions to stay at a high level.The question of how to measure the carbon reduction capability of residents and tap into the potential of emission reductions lying in residential consumption has become an important issue.Then,how to construct and improve residents' low-carbon capability and further promote a leap of human development by the transformation from high-carbon lives to autonomous low-carbon lives is becoming a new challenge facing the government and society.Capability is not inborn,its generation must depend on a specific task/activity and adhere to a dynamic process of values,judgment,choice,and continuity.This study analyzed in depth the generation mechanism and evolution process of capability and further constructed an advanced five-dimensional model of carbon capability.This study also proposed and distinguished the connotations of the multi layered levels of carbon capability,which includes the threshold level,shaping level,effective level,maturity level,and leadership level.Based on this,from the capability maturity evolution view,carbon capability maturity model has been constructed and capability maturity evaluation system was further developed.This paper found key driving factors and build the theoretical model of the driving mechanism of urban residents' carbon capability through qualitative research.Then,on this basis,the questionnaire of urban residents' carbon capability is developed.And according to the large sample survey data of cities in the eastern China,this paper analyzed the current situation,maturity,and difference characteristics of carbon capability.At the same time,this study made an indepth analysis of the functional mechanism of driving factors of urban residents' capability.Further,based on the weighted small-world network,carbon identification capability diffusion model was constructed to do the simulation analysis on the key growth stage of carbon capability.(1)The concept definition and structure validation urban residents' carbon capability.This study made an in-depth analysis of the generation mechanism and the whole evolution process of capability.The carbon capability of urban residents can be defined as a capability collection that shows a continually changing trend from the establishment of low-carbon values,grasping low-carbon identification skills,making wise low-carbon choices,to taking effective low-carbon actions and having a lowcarbon influence in the whole process.Further,this study constructed and verified the five-dimensional model of carbon capability,which are carbon values,carbon identification capability,carbon choice capability,carbon action capability,and carbon influence capability from the “cognition” to “execution” to “contribution” layer.From the perspective of capability maturity evolution,carbon capability maturity model has been constructed.This study has also proposed and gave a clear explanation of the connotations of the multi layered levels of carbon capability maturity,which include the initial level,growth level,specification level,integration level and optimizing level.This study has further develop the capability maturity evaluation system.(2)Current situation and maturity evaluation of urban residents' carbon capability.The results indicate that there is an obvious ‘‘multi-layered gap” phenomenon that is evident from carbon values to carbon influence capability.Carbon identification capability and carbon influence capability are the main segments hindering carbon capability.The number of urban residents from initial level to optimizing level show the gradually decreasing trend by the type of “pyramid”.Significantly,up to 71.7% of the urban residents belong to the initial level,it reminds us to ascend the carbon identification capability as our priority to promote carbon capability maturity.(3)Qualitative research and quantitative test of driving mechanism of urban residents' carbon capability.Based on qualitative research,the major driving factors and their action mechanism has been classified,and the theoretical model of driving mechanism of urban residents' carbon capability has been established.Then,the questionnaire of urban residents' carbon capability is developed.And based on the large sample survey data of cities in the eastern China,this paper analyzed the current situation,maturity,and difference characteristics of carbon capability.At the same time,this study made an in-depth analysis of the functional mechanism of driving factors of urban residents' capability.This paper conducts a comprehensive test of the theoretical model of driving mechanism of urban residents' carbon capability using correlation analysis,regression analysis and structural equation model.The results show that preferences of comfort,eco-neuroticism,ecoconscientiousness,organizational low-carbon values,organizational low-carbon climate,social consumer culture and social norms have indirect effects on carbon capability via utility experience perception;Eco-agreeableness and eco-openness,on the one hand,have direct effects on carbon capability,on the other hand,they have indirect effects on carbon capability via utility experience perception,and the mediation effect is more significant than the direct effect;Except for the behavior implement cost,the other situational factors present a significant moderating effect on the relationship between utility experience perception and carbon capability.Especially,only the personal economic cost and habit conversion cost have the negative moderating effects;Different social demographic variables,such as age,education,marital status,family income,company type and rank,have significant influence on capability.(4)The simulation analyses about the carbon capability of urban residents at the key growth phase.Through synthesizing two capabilities—Broadcasting and barter types--diffusion mechanism,using weighted small world theory to establish individual informal carbon recognition diffusion model,and MATLAB emulated platform to conduct the simulation analysis,the paper studies the diffusion mechanism of the carbon identification capability through the intervention of external situational factors from the network and adjusted by personal carbon trading market.The research shows that whether random relationship intensity or strong relations network,can ascertain the sender throughout the proliferation process of capability knowledge priority strategy,which can bring higher growth rate to the network and retain the best equilibrium in the short term,with the disappear of the advantages from low carbon identification capability,balance optimization under the pattern of intensity priority diffusion;whether alone or the combination effect of external situational factors,carbon identification capability and its diffusion rate both show an upward trend;in the weak tie network,although it can ascertain the sender through knowledge and intensity priority methods,there is little difference in the growth rate of the nodes of network capability,however,intensity priority network balance is inherently better than the knowledge priority pattern;compared with strong relationship network,when intervention influenced by external situational factors,the weak relationship network can create more capability increments;after the introduction of personal carbon trading market mechanisms,the growth rate of network capability show significant boosts,the overall proportionality is inherently better than the network under non-carbon market trading mechanism;the more proportion barter type network nodes occupy,the less the broadcasting type nodes,the higher carbon identification capability diffusion efficiency is,but with the risk of network proportionality worsening.(5)Policies research from the viewpoint of sustainable improvement in urban residents' carbon capability with positive utility experience perception as the core parts.This study build the strategic system of urban residents' carbon capability from the systematic view,which is divided into the four aspects: self-construction of carbon capability,positive development of utility experience perception,key guiding of driving factors,positive intervention of situational factors and positive feedback of utility experience perception.On this basis this study made a comprehensive evaluation of each policy according to five dimensions: capability level,effect significance,implementation difficulty,appearance period of policy effect,and cost.Then,the policy choice matrix was proposed.