Abstract
The Wenchuan earthquake in 2008 has resulted in 50% of Guangyuan city facing recovery from different extents of damages. The massive reconstruction provides a good opportunity for Guangyuan city to response to the National Council’s call for tackling climate change by developing a harmonised and low-carbon economy. However, there are many arguments about the definition of ‘low carbon’ and the framework that low-carbon development should follow. Low-carbon development in an economically least developed region such as Guangyuan would provide evidence and contribute to the discussion. The paper employs CO2 emissions as an environmental indicator in scenario analysis to investigate Guangyuan’s future carbon performance in following the national call of reducing 40% of carbon intensity by 2020 and an alternative low-carbon development path. The results have demonstrated that a ‘win–win’ solution can be reached—keeping rapid economic growth while reducing CO2 emissions, however, only by addressing the ‘correct’ determining factors. Technology improvements and production structure changes have been identified as the key determining factors to affect both carbon intensity and CO2 emissions in the future. The two factors are also interdependent. Governmental policies should give appropriate guideline to address both factors but with strong emphasis on production structure decarbonisation in order to avoid the mistake of ‘polluting first and deal with the pollution later’ during the emission-intensive industrialisation processes that many western countries and China’s coastal regions have followed.
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Notes
The reason to group electricity and coal mining and processing sectors together here is due to the limitation of official statistics in Guangyuan. Almost all large coal mining sites have their own small scale coal-fired electricity plant(s). They produce the electricity for their production and residential needs. Our calculation largely relies on current available statistics that have not been able to separate the two sectors.
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Guan, D., Barker, T. Low-carbon development in the least developed region: a case study of Guangyuan, Sichuan province, southwest China. Nat Hazards 62, 243–254 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-011-9993-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-011-9993-3