Alternative pathways to CO2 reduction in Gansu province, China

Abstract

Climate change has been considerable concerned because of the increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Gansu province is a typical less-developed and heavy chemical industrial province, its CO2 emission per unit of the gross domestic product (GDP) is 252.52 ton per million Chinese yuan (t/M-CNY) in 2019, which is 48.42% more than national average value. Gansu province faces the following dual pressures including maintaining economic growth and reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. This paper establishes a low carbon development system dynamics model in order to investigate the effects of four carbon reduction measures (technical progress, industrial transformation, fuel substitution, and low carbon awareness) on reducing CO2 emission over the period of 2020–2030. The simulation results indicate that, without direct intervention, the CO2 emissions per unit of GDP is projected to be 171.34 t/M-CNY by 2030. While utilizing technical progress, implementing industrial transformation, fuel substitution, and low carbon awareness could potentially be 2.12%, 3.33%, 0.72% and 1.27%, respectively less than that. For the sake of achieving the goal of CO2 reduction in the long run, the local government should address today’s industrial transformation and adopt reasonable combination of adjustment and control policies immediately.