| China’s economy has been developing rapidly since the reform and opening up.But at the same time,China’s environmental pollution has been also getting worse.Since 2007,China has surpassed the United States as the largest carbon emitter in the world.At present,China contributes 28.17%of the global CO2 emissions.In the face of increasingly serious greenhouse gas emissions and environmental pollution,China promised at the 21st session of the Conference of Parties in 2015(COP21)held in Paris to control its CO2 emissions so that by 2030 its emissions per unit of GDP will be reduced by 60%-65%compared to 2005,meanwhile its total emissions will reach a peak.However,China’s carbon emissions are still growing.Therefore,China is facing enormous pressure to reduce carbon emissions.In China,the transportation sector is the third largest carbon emission emitter.It contributes 9.35%of the total carbon emissions.Meanwhile,it is also the most challenging sector in carbon emission reduction.To start with,its carbon emissions are rising fastest.Specifically,the increase in its CO2 emissions was 2.32 times the total in China during 1990-2016.Besides,it is also rated as the most difficult sector to achieve "carbon peak" in China in the World Energy Outlook 2017 China Special Report.Hence,it is of great significance to reduce transportation carbon emissions.In order to effectively reduce transportation carbon emissions,it is very necessary to clearly understand the spatial-temporal evolution of transportation carbon emissions from multiple dimensions and perspectives;on this basis,scientifically measure the transportation carbon emission reduction potentials of various provinces;reasonably allocate the emission reduction tasks to each province;and then formulate differentiated emission reduction strategies for provinces according to different sources of emission reduction potentials.In this study,the spatial-temporal evolution of China’s transportation carbon emissions is first analyzed from the following perspectives:(i)spatial non-equilibrium and its solidification effect;(ii)club convergence effect;(iii)decoupling effect;(iv)and carbon rebound effect.Next,the emission reduction potentials of various provinces are calculated,and the sources of their potentials are explored.All of these will contribute to the reasonable allocation of carbon emission reduction tasks and the scientific formulation of emission reduction strategies.This paper is organized as eight chapters as follows:Chapter 1 is the introduction.It first introduces this paper’s research background,purpose and significance,and then outlines the main research contents,structural framework and the technical route.Chapter 2 is the literature review.It reviews the existing literature on(ⅰ)the regional differences in transportation carbon emissions;(ⅱ)the convergence of transportation carbon emissions;(ⅲ)the decoupling effect of transportation carbon emissions;(ⅳ)the factors influencing transportation carbon emissions;(ⅴ)the energy rebound effect and the carbon rebound effect;(ⅵ)and the calculation of transportation carbon efficiency,etc.Chapter 3 explores the spatial non-equilibrium of China’s per capita transportation carbon emissions and its solidification effect.First of all,the Dagum Gini coefficient is used to calculate and decompose the spatial non-equilibrium.Then,the Kernel density estimation is employed to investigate the dynamic evolution characteristics of the spatial non-equilibrium.At last,the Markov chains are applied to analyze the solidification of the spatial non-equilibrium.Chapter 4 investigates the spatial differentiation and its influencing factors of the club convergence of per capita transportation carbon emissions in China.First,the log t regression test method and the club clustering algorithm are used to examine the full sample convergence and club convergence.Second,the spatial differentiation characteristics of these convergence clubs are analyzed.Finally,the econometric regression model is used to examine the factors influencing the spatial differentiation of these convergence clubs.Chapter 5 takes the comparative analysis of the 11th and 12th Five-Year Plan periods as the perspective.First,the decoupling relationship between transportation carbon emissions and transportation economic growth in 30 provinces from 2006 to 2015 is examined.Then the spatial-temporal evolution characteristics of their decoupling states during the two Five-Year Plan periods are comparatively analyzed.Next,in order to explore the reasons for the differences in the spatial-temporal evolution,the LMDI decomposition method is also used to decompose and analyze the factors driving the transportation carbon emissions during the two Five-Year Plan periods.Chapter 6 examines the transportation sector’s carbon rebound effect in each province from the perspective of technological progress.First,the transportation carbon emissions’ reductions and increases caused by the technological progress of the transportation sector of each province are calculated,respectively.And then the carbon rebound effect of each province are obtained.On this basis,its temporal changes and spatial distribution are analyzed.Chapter 7 studies the transportation carbon emission reduction potentials of various provinces and decomposes their sources.First,the meta-frontier analysis method and linear programming algorithm are used to calculate the transportation carbon efficiency of each province.Next,the transportation carbon inefficiency relative to the meta frontier is considered as the transportation carbon emission reduction potential.According to the sources,it is decomposed into the emission reduction potentials caused by the management failure and the technology gap.Eventually,the allocation of transportation carbon emission reduction tasks and the main directions for the formulation of relevant emission reduction strategies are proposed for various provinces.Chapter 8 summarizes the main research conclusions,and accordingly proposes relevant policy recommendations for China’s transportation carbon emission reduction.Additionally,the research deficiencies are pointed out.The main research conclusions are as follows:(1)Overall,the per capita transportation carbon emissions at the national level,as well as in the eastern,central and western regions all shows a certain growth trend,but there are certain different evolution characteristics among the three regions.To be specific,the eastern region exerts a trend of agglomeration from low level to high level;the central region presents a more obvious divergence characteristic;and the western region shows a state of high-level aggregation.In terms of spatial nonequilibrium,the per capita transportation carbon emissions’ overall difference,intraregional difference and inter-regional difference are decreasing.In addition,this spatial non-equilibrium exhibits a stronger solidification effect.The probability of transition between different levels is lower.But in contrast,the low level and middlelow level are more likely to shift to the medium and high levels.(2)From the perspective of convergence,there is no full-sample convergence.But the club convergence exists.China’s 30 provinces are classified into three convergence clubs with different carbon emission levels and a divergent group.Specifically,Beijing and Liaoning belong to the divergent group;Shanghai and Inner Mongolia converge to the high carbon emission club;Jiangxi,Henan,Shandong,Hebei and Sichuan converge to the low carbon emission club;the remaining 21 provinces converge to the medium carbon emission club.Besides,the province with a higher energy intensity,higher urbanization level,and higher fixed assets investment intensity in transportation tends to converge to the high carbon emission club.(3)From the perspective of decoupling effect,the overall decoupling relationship between transportation carbon emissions and transportation economic growth is gradually improving.At the provincial level,the decoupling states are mainly expansive negative decoupling and weak decoupling.The two states obviously vary in the spatial-temporal evolution.The decline in transportation energy intensity and transportation intensity are the main factors that inhibit the growth of carbon emissions during the 11th and 12th Five-Year Plan periods,respectively.And the growth of per capita wealth is the decisive factor driving the increase in transportation carbon emissions.Additionally,the significant decrease in transportation intensity is the main reason why the carbon emissions significantly decrease and the decoupling states significantly improve during the 12th Five-Year Plan period compared with the 11th Five-Year Plan period.(4)From the perspective of carbon rebound effect,the transportation sector’s carbon rebound effect is featured by small inter-annual changes and large interprovincial differences.To be specific,the carbon rebound effect of each year is between 30%and 90%,and the average carbon rebound effect of provinces is between 10%and 170%.The carbon rebound effect is obviously different between regions.Specifically,the carbon rebound effect in the eastern region is the smallest,while the carbon rebound effects in the other regions are greater.Although China’s transportation sector has a certain degree of carbon rebound effect,technological progress can still effectively promote China’s transportation carbon emission reduction to a certain extent.(5)From the perspective of carbon emission reduction potential,the national average annual transportation carbon emission reduction potential can reach 12.255393 million tons which is equivalent to 8.42%of the total national average annual transportation carbon emissions.The carbon emission reduction potentials caused by the management failure and the technology gap account for 42.52%and 57.48%,respectively.At the regional level,the eastern region has the highest potential,much higher than the central and western regions;and the central and western r egions have very similar potentials.Meanwhile,it can be seen,in the three regions the emission reduction potential caused by the technology gap is higher than that caused by the management failure.At the provincial level,Shandong,Shanghai and Liaoning has the highest potential.In addition,Shandong has a higher potential due to the technology gap,while Shanghai and Liaoning have a slightly higher potential due to the management failure;Qinghai,Jiangxi,and Ningxia have the lowest potential,and their potentials are mainly derived from the technology gap.The main research innovations are as follows:(1)This paper depicts the spatial non-equilibrium of China’s per capita transportation carbon emissions from static and dynamic perspectives,and decomposes the sources of the non-equilibrium:More importantly,the solidification effect of the spatial non-equilibrium is investigated innovatively.(2)The existing researches on club convergence are usually based on the classification using priori information such as geographic location,institution design,etc.,thus lacking objective and reasonable classification criteria.Moreover,different classification criteria may lead to inconsistent research conclusions.In this paper,the log t regression test method based on the nonlinear time-varying factor model and club clustering algorithm are used to explore the club convergence characteristics of China’s per capita transportation carbon emissions.Based on the characteristics of the data itself,the convergence clubs are objectively classified,thereby overcoming the bias caused by the artificial classification.Furthermore,the factors influencing the club convergence are investigated innovatively.(3)From the perspective of comparative analysis for different Five-Year Plan periods,this paper empirically examines the spatial-temporal evolution characteristics of the decoupling relationship between transportation carbon emissions and transportation economic growth at the national and provincial levels.In order to understand the reasons for the spatial-temporal evolution difference of the decoupling state during different Five-Year Plan periods,the differences in the driving factors of transportation carbon emissions are comparatively analyzed.In short,this paper innovatively conducts an empirical research from the Five-Year Plan perspective,and makes up for the shortcomings of the existing researches that do not systematically investigate the impact of China’s Five-Year Plan on environmental governance to some extent.(4)For a single sector such as transportation sector,the calculation of its carbon rebound effect needs to clearly identify the contribution of the sector’s technological progress to its carbon emission reduction and economic growth.Therefore,the existing calculation methods for the consumption carbon rebound effect and the macroeconomic carbon rebound effect are no longer applicable.In view of this,we innovatively define the measurement method of the carbon rebound effect of a single sector.Using this method,the transportation carbon rebound effects in various provinces are measured,which makes up for the research deficiency in this field to some extent,and also provides a new idea for the future research on the measurement of carbon rebound effect of a single sector.(5)Compared with the existing literature,the technical heterogeneity is taken into.account in the measurement of transportation carbon efficiency,and the defects in the non-parametric estimation of the existing literature are made up for,which greatly improves the calculation accuracy of the carbon efficiency.Based on this,the transportation carbon emission reduction potentials of various provinces in China are examined innovatively.And the potentials’ sources are decomposed.Further,the allocation of carbon emission reduction tasks and the main directions for the formulation of emission reduction strategies are come up with for each province.The above provides a certain reference for the calculation and the source decomposition of energy conservation and emission reduction potentials in other sectors and industries. |
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