An Estimating Method for Carbon Emissions of China Based on Nighttime Lights Remote Sensing Satellite Images

• Published in: Sustainability Vol. 14; no. 4; p. 2269
• Main Authors: Yang, Tianjiao, Liu, Jing, Mi, Haibo, Cao, Zhicheng, Wang, Yiting, Han, Huichao, Luan, Jiahui, Wang, Zhaoxuan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.02.2022
• Subjects: Building construction; Buildings; Carbon; Construction industry; Emission measurements; Emissions; Emissions control; Energy conservation; Energy consumption; Growth rate; Lighting; Longitudinal studies; Methods; Remote sensing; Satellite imagery; Satellites; Sustainability; Urbanization; China
• ISSN: 2071-1050; 2071-1050
• DOI: 10.3390/su14042269

In September 2020, China proposed the achievement of the emission reduction targets of “carbon peak” and “carbon neutral” by 2030 and 2060, respectively. As an important area of energy consumption in addition to industry and transportation, the construction industry has great energy-saving potential and is gradually becoming the key to achieving China’s energy-saving and emission-reduction goals. Energy data is an important basic support for measuring carbon emissions, analyzing energy-saving potential, and formulating energy-saving targets. In order to solve the he lack of data on China’s carbon emissions, this paper uses lamplight remote sensing image data in the study. Combined with China’s eastern, central, and western regions of building carbon emissions data and the establishment of a partition of China building carbon emissions calculation model, panel data found building carbon emissions and smooth lamp brightness values between the balanced relations. After that, using the building carbon emissions models of the three regions, the building carbon emissions of 30 provinces, 360 cities, and 2778 counties in China were measured, and the changing trends and temporal and spatial directions of building carbon emissions at three spatial scales were analyzed. The results showed that although the total carbon emissions of civil buildings in China has been increasing year by year, its average annual growth rate is gradually slowing down. In addition, the temporal and spatial development directions of carbon emissions from buildings of different spatial scales are basically the same, and they all show a trend of shifting to the east.