Spatial-temporal characteristics and drivers of the regional residential CO₂ emissions in China during 2000–2017

Residential sector is an important CO₂ emitter in China. This study first analyzes spatial-temporal characteristics of residential CO₂ emissions (RCE) of China's 30 provinces from 2000 to 2017, and then identify the key driving forces of RCE from both temporal and spatial perspectives. Main findings includes: (1) Rural residents experienced a relatively higher growth in RCE than the urban; (2) During 2000–2017 population scale effect contributed most of 35.5% to the increase of RCE while energy structure effect was the key element to reduce RCE by 34.1%. Urbanization effect performed an inverted “U-shaped” evolution trajectory; (3) From the spatial perspective, population scale effect, energy structure effect, energy intensity effect and income improvement effect all worked for enlarging the inequality of RCE among provinces, and their average contribution degree were 31.4%, 23.1%, 22.9% and 16.4%, respectively; (4) In order to attain larger mitigation in RCE, Hebei, Inner Mongolia and Shanxi could focus more on the improvement of energy efficiency and structure while Guangdong, Shandong and Jiangsu on low-carbon consumption and travelling. The improved M-R spatial decomposition model could be applied to investigate city-level RCE, and the results help China to design targeted mitigation measures for provincial residential sector.