CO2 Emissions from Direct Energy Use of Urban Households in India

详细信息    查看全文

• 作者：Sohail Ahmad ; Giovanni Baiocchi ; Felix Creutzig
• 刊名：Environmental Science & Technology
• 出版年：2015
• 出版时间：October 6, 2015
• 年：2015
• 卷：49
• 期：19
• 页码：11312-11320
• 全文大小：394K
• ISSN：1520-5851

文摘

India hosts the world鈥檚 second largest population and offers the world鈥檚 largest potential for urbanization. India鈥檚 urbanization trajectory will have crucial implications on its future GHG emission levels. Using household microdata from India鈥檚 60 largest cities, this study maps GHG emissions patterns and its determinants. It also ranks the cities with respect to their household actual and 鈥渃ounter-factual鈥?GHG emissions from direct energy use. We find that household GHG emissions from direct energy use correlate strongly with income and household size; population density, basic urban services (municipal water, electricity, and modern cooking-fuels access) and cultural, religious, and social factors explain more detailed emission patterns. We find that the 鈥済reenest鈥?cities (on the basis of household GHG emissions) are Bareilly and Allahabad, while the 鈥渄irtiest鈥?cities are Chennai and Delhi; however, when we control for socioeconomic variables, the ranking changes drastically. In the control case, we find that smaller lower-income cities emit more than expected, and larger high-income cities emit less than expected in terms of counter-factual emissions. Emissions from India鈥檚 cities are similar in magnitude to China鈥檚 cities but typically much lower than those of comparable U.S. cities. Our results indicate that reducing urban heat-island effects and the associated cooling degree days by greening, switching to modern nonsolid cooking fuels, and anticipatory transport infrastructure investments are key policies for the low-carbon and inclusive development of Indian cities.