Study On The Impact Of Committed CO₂ Emissions From Coal-fired Power Plants On China’s Provincial Emissions

Climate change and energy consumptions have become challenges and constraints of the global social developments,especially in developing countries.The Chinese government has formulated a series of policies and measures in order to control the CO2 emissions.Coal-fired power plants,as the largest anthropogenic source of CO2 emissions,generate large amount of CO2 emissions during their lifetimes of operation.These parts of carbon are called committed emissions,which thus influence future CO2 emission space under specific targets on mitigating global climate change.This study calculated the China’s provincial CO2 emissions based on the statistical data,and analyzed the characteristic of spatiotemporal distribution of C02 emissions.Then,the committed emissions of newly installed capacities year by year during 1993-2014 using China’s national statistics is also been calculated.Besides,this study evaluated the committed and remaining emissions based on the power system planning,which may greatly affected policy making.Firstly,the annual growth rate of total CO2 emissions was decreased to 3%during 2012-2014,which is lower than the growth rate during 2000-2012(8%).The higher CO2 emissions were distributed in eastern coastal China.But in recent years,Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia featured fast growth which affected by the shift of heavy energy-intensive industries.In 2014,the energy consumption sector is still the biggest source of CO2 emissions.The CO2 emissions of electricity accounted for 30%which is the largest source in the energy consumption sector.Secondly,China’s total committed emissions from thermal generators installed during 1993-2014 reached 112.45 Gt,and about 88.17 Gt CO2 will be released into the atmosphere during the remaining lifetimes of the generators(remaining emissions).At the provincial level,the total committed emissions were distributed unevenly in different China’s provinces.The provinces with high committed emissions mainly cause by its secondary industries or coal reserves.Except for Xinjiang and Anhui,the other provinces show the same characteristics as the national total commitment.At the units’ level,the capacities of units also increase firstly and then decrease.The committed emissions of China’s coal-fired power plants were distributed in the developed regions except for Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang,which mainly caused by geographic advantages.Thirdly,the remaining emissions will reach at 3.97 Gt if assumed all of generators which are approved before 2014 will be built in 2020.This part of remaining emissions account for 43%of total carbon emissions according to the research,which is the serious challenge to mitigate the CO2 emissions.The provincial CO2 emissions inventory and committed emissions inventory of coal-fired power plants were established.The conclusions of this study provide new thought to the China’s governments,which have important policy implications for other rapidly developing countries.