Abstract
As the most developed city circle in northern China, allocating CO2 emission quotas at the Bohai Rim Economic Circle (BREC) city level is essential for developing specific abatement policies. Thus, with reflecting multi-principles (fairness, efficiency, sustainability, and feasibility), this paper formulates the CO2 emission quota allocation among cities in BREC in 2030 based on the multi-objective decision approach. We first propose three allocation schemes based on the principles of fairness, efficiency, and sustainability, which are conducted by entropy method, zero-sum gains data envelopment (ZSG-DEA) model, and CO2 sequestration share method, respectively. Then, the CO2 allocation satisfaction is defined and used to measure the feasibility principle which is integrated as the objective function of the multi-objective decision model together with three allocation schemes to obtain the optimal allocation results. The results show that Beijing, Tianjin, Dalian, Shijiazhuang, Yantai, Weifang, and Linyi enjoy the largest CO2 emission quotas, having 1179.94 Mt in total and accounting for 31%. Beijing has the highest quotas, and Laiwu has the lowest emission quotas. Cities with large energy consumption and less CO2 sequestration capacity, such as Tianjin, Handan, and Tangshan, experience a decrease in the emission quota shares from 2017 to 2030, indicating that these cities would undertake large emission reduction obligations. Sensitivity analysis shows that Beijing, Zibo, and Jinan are more sensitive to minimum satisfaction changes, and the total satisfaction experiences an increase first and declines thereafter. Based on the results above, cities with large pressure to reduce CO2 emissions should not only promote economic development but also improve the capacity of CO2 sequestration by enhancing environmental protection to realize emission reduction targets.
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Data Availability
The datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are available in the National Bureau of Statistics of China, China Energy Statistics Yearbook, and China City Statistical Yearbook. http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/ndsj/.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful for the financial support from the Major Program of Social Science Foundation of Tianjin Municipal Education Commission (No. 2016JWZD04) and the Ministry of Education of Humanities and Social Science Research Fund Plan (no. 15YJA790091). Additionally, the authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on this paper.
Funding
This work was funded by the Major Program of Social Science Foundation of Tianjin Municipal Education Commission (No. 2016JWZD04) and the Ministry of Education of Humanities and Social Science Research Fund Plan (no. 15YJA790091).
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Zhiyuan Li: conceptualization, methodology, software, resources, data curation, writing (original draft), and writing (review and editing). Huadun Chen: validation, investigation, resources, data curation, and writing—review and editing. Juan Wang: conceptualization, investigation, writing (original draft), and writing—review and editing. and Tao Zhao: methodology, formal analysis, and writing—review and editing.
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Li, Z., Chen, H., Wang, J. et al. Optimal allocation of CO2 emission quotas at the city level in Bohai Rim Economic Circle based on multi-objective decision approach. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 60798–60817 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-14841-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-14841-2