The Carbon Emission Characteristics and Reduction Potential in Developing Areas: Case Study from Anhui Province, China

Global warming and world-wide climate change caused by increasing carbon emissions have attracted a widespread public attention, while anthropogenic activities account for most of these problems generated in the social economy. In order to comprehensively measure the levels of carbon emissions and carbon sinks in Anhui Province, the study adopted some specific carbon accounting methods to analyze and explore datasets from the following suggested five carbon emission sources of energy consumption, food consumption, cultivated land, ruminants and waste, and three carbon sink sources of forest, grassland and crops to compile the carbon emission inventory in Anhui Province. Based on the compiled carbon emission inventory, carbon emissions and carbon sink capacity were calculated from 2000 to 2019 in Anhui Province, China. Combined with ridge regression and scenario analysis, the STIRPAT model was used to evaluate and predict the regional carbon emission from 2020 to 2040 to explore the provincial low-carbon development pathways, and carbon emissions of various industrial sectors were systematically compared and analyzed. Results showed that carbon emissions increased rapidly from 2000 to 2019 and regional energy consumption was the primary source of carbon emissions in Anhui Province. There were significant differences found in the increasing carbon emissions among various industries. The consumption proportion of coal in the provincial energy consumption continued to decline, while the consumption of oil and electricity proceeded to increase. Furthermore, there were significant differences among different urban and rural energy structures, and the carbon emissions from waste incineration were increasing. Additionally, there is an inverted “U”-shape curve of correlation between carbon emission and economic development in line with the environmental Kuznets curve, whereas it indicated a “positive U”-shaped curve of correlation between carbon emission and urbanization rate. The local government should strengthen environmental governance, actively promote industrial transformation, and increase the proportion of clean energy in the energy production and consumption structures in Anhui Province. These also suggested a great potential of emission reduction with carbon sink in Anhui Province.