Construction of buildings, power plants and roads, has led to a substantial increase in the growth of China CO2 emissions, according to new research involving the University of East Anglia (UEA).
The rapid growth of capital investments in infrastructure projects has led to the expansion of the construction industry and energy and CO2 supply chain intensive, such as steel and cement production. As a result of this transformation of China's economy, more and more CO2 was released per unit of GDP - the return of a long-term trend.
Recently, China has become the largest energy consumer in the world, and the level of CO2 emissions, overtaking the United States. Previously, the growth of greenhouse gas emissions was driven by rising consumption and exports. Today, this is offset by the growth of the emission savings from increased efficiency, but these savings are an obstacle to the construction of infrastructure - which is important because it dictates be posted tomorrow, an international team of researchers says.
The study, A 'coke Dragon "China's rapid growth in CO2 emissions again," is published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. He stressed that the implementation of a low carbon infrastructure in place in China and other emerging economies and developing countries since the beginning is a key global challenge to avoid "carbon lock-in" - where a country could being stuck on a path to high emissions - which would have a significant and lasting impact on future emissions.
"Carbon intensity nature of capital investment in heavy industry, large infrastructure, construction and energy production, can be difficult to avoid when China tries to start a chain reaction of higher investment and economic growth," he explained Giovanni Baiocchi, UEA Norwich Business School, United Kingdom, and lead author of the study.
"A lot of the investment in CO2 emissions would only be temporary, such as, economic development, investment, moving further into the high-tech technology and environment," added Dr. Baiocchi, a professor of business and climate change. "It 'important, however, that China is now placed in the right kind of infrastructure to limit the growth of CO2 emissions that cause global warming. The type of infrastructure available today is also largely determine the future cost of mitigation."
Study's lead author, Jan Minx, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the Technical University of Berlin, said: "The year 2002 was a race between consumption growth and the 'efficiency, however, the recent increase in emissions is due entirely to a deep restructuring of the Chinese emissions are growing faster and faster, because .. the areas of CO2 associated with the construction of infrastructure has become increasingly dominant. China has developed "paper Coal dragon '. "
The researchers made a "structural break" Analysis of input-output data 1992-2007 - the latest official data available - which allowed them to changes in emissions over time, a number of drivers, such as consumption, growth , efficiency and structural change.
They found that emissions have tripled between 1992 and 2007, an increase of almost four billion tons, with 70% of this growth occurred between 2002 and 2007. The average annual growth of CO2 emissions in this period was only similar in size to the total CO2 emissions in the United Kingdom. While exports have shown the fastest growth in emissions of CO2 at a given time, capital investment and the construction industry and beyond.
According to the study of another important driver of urbanization emissions - emissions from household consumption is more important than population growth or household size, even in decline. When people move from one country to changes in lifestyle will be the city. The villagers, for example, tend to look for gas, heat and electricity and also depend more on transportation infrastructure to get to work, which involves higher carbon footprint per capita.
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