Ecological Indicators 40 (2014) 51–57 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Ecological Indicators j ournal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolind A model for developing a target integrated low carbon city indicator system: The case of Xiamen, China a,b c a,b,∗ a,b a,b Jianyi Lin , Jessica Jacoby , Shenghui Cui , Yuan Liu , Tao Lin a Key Lab of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen 361021, China b Xiamen Key Lab of Urban Metabolism, Xiamen 361021, China c Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, UK a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Article history: Carbon intensity targets, namely carbon emissions per unit of GDP, are used as macro-level indicators Received 19 March 2013 of low carbon performance at the province- and city-level in China. However, this measure is too aggre- Received in revised form gated to provide a meaningful indication of low carbon performance and inform practical management 24 December 2013 strategies. Most traditional low carbon city indicators have no direct relationship with national carbon Accepted 2 January 2014 intensity reduction targets and do not provide municipal government administrators with the practical information they need to inform low carbon development at the local level. This paper integrates city- Keywords: level carbon intensity targets with a low carbon city indicator system by means of a decomposed method Indicator to offer a better approach for carbon intensity reduction performance evaluation. Using Xiamen as a case Low carbon city study, one of the NDRC’s low-carbon project areas, a target integrated indicator system is presented, Carbon reduction target Decomposed method including indicator values which have been determined through scenario analysis and calculation. The Xiamen indicators and values can help local municipal governments to meet their carbon intensity reduction targets by providing an indication of current performance and identifying sectors where there is scope for further improvement. The methodology provides the theoretical basis and reference values for the evaluation of a city’s low carbon performance within the context of achieving a carbon reduction target, thereby enhancing the potential for scientific and operational evaluation at the local level. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction made a binding target for provinces (China State Council, 2011) and this will soon also be extended to cities. In addition, the NDRC Low carbon city development has become a topic of global inter- launched a national low carbon province and low carbon city pilot est in recent years (Kennedy et al., 2011; Lin et al., 2010). China has project in 2010, which requires chosen pilot areas to meet this pledged to reduce its carbon intensity (CO2/unit of gross domestic reduction target. This results in an urgent need to develop effec- product (GDP)) by 40–45% by 2020 from 2005 baseline levels. As a tive carbon intensity reduction measures and to track progress in developing country, there still have a long way to reach the abso- meeting these targets for Chinese cities. lute decoupling for China, and the emissions of GHG will inevitably Low carbon indicator systems are an important component continue to grow on the context of rapid urbanization and indus- of integrated environmental management, which can help to trialization. Not until 2030, the absolute decoupling target may be evaluate current performance and measure progress toward set reached (He et al., 2012). Therefore, in the short term, the rela- targets. Some researchers prefer to develop comprehensive indi- tive decoupling target (intensity target) is still useful to control the cator system to evaluate low-carbon development from different increasing rate of carbon emissions, though it cannot decrease the dimensions. The Regions for Sustainable Change (RSC) project total emissions. The Chinese government has included the 40–45% developed a low carbon indicator toolkit, which is a complex and reduction goal in its 12th Five-Year Plan on Social and Economic comprehensive tool for stakeholders from European regions who Development (FYP), which covers the period from 2011 to 2015. need to work with low carbon indicators in the policy-making As part of this plan, the carbon intensity reduction target has been process. Chatham House and Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (2010) developed 12 indicators for assessing low carbon develop- ment, belonging to four categories: low carbon productivity, low ∗ carbon consumption, low carbon resources, low carbon policy. The Corresponding author at: Key Laboratory of Urban Environment and Health, World Bank recommended a low-carbon indicator list for Chinese Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen 361021, cities, including five categories: carbon emissions, energy, green China. Tel.: +86 5926190957. E-mail address: [email protected] (S. Cui). buildings, sustainable transport, and smart urban form (Baeumler 1470-160X/$ – see front matter © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2014.01.001 52 J. Lin et al. / Ecological Indicators 40 (2014) 51–57 et al., 2012). Other researchers try to construct low carbon index by energy use; CEwaste is carbon emissions by waste disposal; by integrating different selected indicators for the evaluation of CE is carbon emissions from agriculture; CE is agriculture industrial process relative low carbon city status and promoting low carbon city carbon emissions from industrial process; CEforest is carbon emis- development. Song established an index analysis system to eval- sions from forests. uate the low carbon city development in the Yangtze River Delta Eq. (1) means the total GHG emission intensity is decomposed based on the driving force-pressure-state-impact-response (DPSIR) into five parts: energy use intensity, waste intensity, agriculture model and factor analysis (Song and Li, 2012). Yang established intensity, industrial process intensity, and forest intensity. Each a three-layer low carbon city evaluation index system and calcu- part of Eq. (1) will be further discussed in the sections below. lated a comprehensive evaluation score of Beijing’s low carbon city development in 2009 (Yang et al., 2011). And some similar 2.1. Energy use weighted multi-layer index system was also proposed by other Chi- nese researchers (Li et al., 2011; Yan et al., 2011; Zhang and Wang, Energy-related GHG emissions are directly related to energy 2010). To avoid that macro-level indicator may be too aggregated consumption intensity and integrated emission factors. It can be to be meaningful measurements of low carbon development, Price written as follows: developed a sectoral end-use low carbon indicator system at the CEenergy CEenergy E provincial and city level for China (Price et al., 2013). = = × EF × I (2) GDP E GDP integrated integrated For Chinese intensity reduction target, most above approaches leave a crucial gap in effective performance evaluation as these where, CEenergy is carbon emissions from energy use; GDP is gross indicators had not direct relationship with individual reduction tar- domestic product in one year; E is total energy consumption in get. This prevents local government administrators from using such one year; EFintegrated represents the integrated energy use emission indicator systems in their management of urban carbon intensity factor; Iintegrated represents the total energy intensity. reduction and evaluating progress in relation to the binding target. The integrated emission factor in Eq. (2) is determined by This paper attempts to fill this research gap by integrating the car- the primary energy use structure. This paper only discusses coal, bon intensity reduction target into the indicator system. This type refined oil, natural gas, imported electricity and other non-fossil of low carbon city indicator system will allow municipal govern- energy to match the scope of this research. ment administrators to understand performance trends, measure CE CEenergy CEcoal CEoil natural gas current performance, respond with timely policy adjustments and EF = + + + integrated E E E E track progress leading up to national carbon intensity reduction target deadlines. CE + imported electricity = CEcoal × Ecoal + CEoil × Eoil This paper is organized as follows: (1) calculating low carbon E Ecoal E Eoil E indicators through the decomposed method; (2) constructing the CE E CE natural gas natural gas imported electricity integrated indicator system; (3) taking Xiamen city as an example + × + E E E to illustrate the target integrated indicator system and discussion; natural gas imported electricity (4) conclusions. E imported electricity × = EF × P + EF × P E coal coal oil oil 2. Low carbon city indicator selection by decomposed + EF × P + EF method natural gas natural gas imported electricity × P (3) imported electricity Energy use, industrial processes and product use, agriculture, forestry and other land use, and waste are included in GHG Constrained to: inventory calculations according to IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (IPCC, 2006). The calculation of energy + P P + P + P + P = 1 (4) coal oil natural gas imported electricity non−fossil use, industrial processes, agriculture, forestry and waste has been carried out according to the NDRC guidelines for provincial GHG where, CE , CE , CE and CE are carbon coal oil natural gas imported electricity inventories (NDRC,