What is the relationship between carbon emissions and city size? A long-term trend study of 100 cities.
Abstract
Greenhouse gas increases are the driver of recent, rapid climate change and are, in turn, driven by CO2 emissions. About 70% of carbon emissions arise from urban spaces. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 5th Assessment Report concluded that urban areas drive a large number of carbon emissions from final energy use. It is also certain that urban emissions are rising with urban population but much less clear whether the growth in cities is intensifying emissions. Seventeen years of long-term study was conducted from 2000 to 2017 to understand the carbon emissions trends in 4 cities. The city boundaries were generated on a fine-scale resolution of 30 meters at annual timesteps. The research started with the question "how are carbon emissions related to the size of a city". The study is part of a larger project to understand the long-term carbon emissions trends in 100 cities. As a Preliminary case study, we compare emissions trends for several cities: Melbourne Australia, Beijing, Brisbane Australia and Tokyo. First, we generate urban boundaries for these cities using a new algorithm which uses the Google Earth Engine platform and fuses the Landsat, Night time lights and travel time. Carbon emissions data has been acquired from the Open-source Data Inventory for Anthropogenic CO2 (ODIAC). We calculated the emissions intensification by calculating the linear regression between emissions per square kilometer and year. The results revealed that the emissions intensification is positive in Beijing (5%/yr), Melbourne (2%/yr) and Tokyo (0.5%/yr). By contrast, Brisbane demonstrated a deintensification of its emissions = -2%/yr). A study of 100 cities will help to better understand the relationship between urban growth and carbon emissions and the interactions between changes in city size and emissions intensity. We will also present relationships with population. The study will help to highlight the urban areas with high carbon emissions which will help policy-makers to mitigate those emissions.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFMNS31B0788L
- Keywords:
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- 4302 Geological;
- NATURAL HAZARDS;
- 4306 Multihazards;
- NATURAL HAZARDS;
- 4325 Megacities and urban environment;
- NATURAL HAZARDS;
- 4327 Resilience;
- NATURAL HAZARDS