Spatial Zoning of Carbon Dioxide Emissions at the Intra-City Level: A Case Study of Nanjing, China

With ever-increasing urbanization and industrialization in developing countries, the challenge posed by carbon dioxide emissions (CDEs) has become a hot topic of concern in the realm of sustainable development from a socioeconomic perspective. However, previous studies have only been conducted at macro and meso scales, including at the global, country, and urban levels, and few researchers have delved into the territorial space of urban areas due to a lack of high-precision data. To address this deficiency, we established a theoretical framework to explore the spatial zoning of CDEs based on the newly emerging China high-resolution emission gridded data (CHRED). This study’s innovativeness lies in its provision of a step-by-step process for spatial matching of CDEs based on CHRED in the framework and the construction of square layers to reveal spatial heterogeneity of CDEs at the intra-city level. Taking Nanjing City as the case study area, our findings indicated that CDEs intensity (CDEI) shows an inverted “U-shaped” trend that first increased and then decreased, and finally stabilized from the center to the periphery of the city. With further urbanization and industrialization, the energy consumption sector was found to be the largest contributor to CDEs in Nanjing, and the expanding carbon source zonings will therefore shrink the existing carbon sink zonings. Collectively, these results can provide a scientific reference point to realize China’s “dual carbon” target from the perspective of spatial layout optimization.