Emissions reduction potential analysis of road transportation

At the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen,China announced its target of CO2 emission reduction,that is,by 2020 the amount of CO2 emission per output unit will drop by 40% ~45% compared to that in 2005.The target will be incorporated into China’s long term socio-economic planning.Globally,the transport sector is the largest source of CO2 emissions.Exploring road transportation energy consumption and the abatement opportunities for road transportation is of great significance for low-carbon economy research,and also for the emission reduction target.Based on the existing literature and research,in this article,we outline four major potential ways of emissions reduction on road transportation,which are:(1) give priority to the development of public transportation;(2) give priority to the development of small output volume automobiles;(3) reduce the automobile energy consumption per kilometer;(4) strictly control the automobile pollutant emission standard.With these four potential ways,the article uses the emission calculation model and scenario analysis method to estimate the reduction potential of road transportation carbon emission in 2015 and 2020.Calculation results show that: under low,middle and high scenarios,China will reduce the CO2emission by 21.83,18.91 and 18.81 million tons in 2015 respectively.Up to 2020,the emission amount will achieve 71.48,55.45,and 40.55 million tons respectively.Lastly,according to the development reality of China,the paper puts forward the corresponding policy recommendations in relation to emission reduction of road transportation on the basis of the above findings.