Peaking CO₂ emissions for China's urban passenger transport sector

Due to economic development and urbanization, the number of car ownership continues to increase, making the urban passenger transport sector becoming an important contributor for energy consumption and CO₂ emissions in China (accounting for around 20% of the total carbon emissions of the transport sector in 2016). Hence, how the urban passenger transport sector can contribute to peaking China's carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 is worthy of attention. To that end, we develop a National Energy Technology-Transport (NET-Transport) model to assess the impacts of shifting to alternative clean fuels, improving vehicle fuel efficiency, and promoting public transportation on the future energy demand and CO₂ emissions for China's urban passenger transport sector. The results show that in the context of promoting the use of clean fuel vehicles and increasing vehicle fuel efficiency, CO₂ emissions of China's urban passenger transport sector could reach a peak of 225 MtCO₂ in 2030. If the mode share of public transport could further increase, the CO₂ emissions from the urban passenger transport sector in China are possible to peak at around 2020 with the emissions ranging from 171 to 214 MtCO₂.