Container Ports Multimodal Transport in China from the View of Low Carbon

Abstract The study uses the carbon dioxide emission calculation model published by IPCC to measure carbon dioxide emissions and fuel inputs of the three types of multimodal transport (road-sea, railway-sea, and river-sea) in ports of China. Then, we make a case study on Shanghai port. Combined with carbon taxes launched around 2012 in China, this paper calculates the carbon taxes on the three types of multimodal transport and makes a pairwise comparison between roadway/railway, roadway/waterway and waterway/railway. The results show that increasing the proportion of railway-sea transportation and river-sea transportation to a reasonable level will achieve great energy saving, emission reduction, and economic benefits. According to different transportation network features, this paper applies Cluster analysis to raise separately suggestions for long-term development of coastal container ports in China based on low-carbon thinking.