Neighborhood form and CO₂ emission: evidence from 23 neighborhoods in Jinan, China

Abstract

To understand the household CO₂ emission level in China, as well as how much the neighborhoods’ socio-economic or design factors could influence the CO₂ emission, 23 neighborhoods in Jinan were investigated in 2009 and 2010. These neighborhoods fall into four different types: superblock, enclave, grid and traditional. The household CO₂ emission includes sources of both in-home energy use and passenger transportation. The average CO₂ emission per household is 7.66 t·a^-1, including 6.87 t in-home operational emission and 792 kg transportation emission. The household CO₂ emission by neighborhood categories is 10.97, 5.65, 6.49, 5.40 t·household^-1·a^-1 for superblock, enclave, grid and traditional respectively. Superblock has the highest average emission and also the highest percent (more than 25%) of transportation emission among four different types of neighborhoods. The residential CO₂ emission of superblock neighborhoods in Jinan has already reached the level in developed countries nearly ten years ago. It is predictable that more superblock neighborhoods would be built in China with the fast urbanization. How to avoid the rapid household CO₂ emission growth in the future would be a systematic issue. The study also found that in addition to income and apartment area, household density, land use mix and accessibility to public transportation are three primary factors which have significant impacts on CO₂ emission. High density, mixed land use and convenient accessibility to public transportation tend to reduce household CO₂ emission.

Keywords

CO₂ emission / neighborhood type / transportation / household energy / China

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the Energy Foundation and National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 71101078), the special fund of State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control (No. 11K05ESPCT). We also thank Shandong University, Beijing Normal University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology for their great support.

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2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg