Characterizing Carbon Emissions and the Associations with Socio-Economic Development in Chinese Cities

Reducing carbon emissions in cities is crucial for addressing climate change, while the city-level emissions of different compositions and their relationships with socio-economic features remain largely unknown in China. Here, we explored the city-level emission pattern from the industrial, transportation, and household sectors and the emission intensity, as well as their associations with socio-economic features in China, using the up-to-date (2020) CO(2) emissions based on 0.1° grid (10 × 10 km) emission data. The results show that: (1) CO(2) emissions from the industrial sector were considerably dominant (78%), followed by indirect (10%), transportation (8%), and household (2%) emissions on the national scale; (2) combining total emissions with emission intensity, high emission–high intensity cities, which are the most noteworthy regions, were concentrated in the North, while low emission–low intensity types mainly occurred in the South-West; (3) cities with a higher GDP tend to emit more CO(2), while higher-income cities tend to emit less CO(2), especially from the household sector. Cities with a developed economy, as indicated by GDP and income, would have low emissions per GDP, representing a high emission efficiency. Reducing the proportion of the secondary sector of the economy could significantly decrease CO(2) emissions, especially for industrial cities. Therefore, the carbon reduction policy in China should focus on the industrial cities in the North with high emission–high intensity performance. Increasing the income and proportion of the tertiary industry and encouraging compact cities can effectively reduce the total emissions during the economic development and urbanization process.