Global Research Trends Related to CO2 Emissions and Their Enlightenment to China

Given the growing awareness of the likely catastrophic impacts of climate change and close association of climate change with global emissions of greenhouse gases (of which carbon dioxide is more prominent), considerable research efforts have been devoted to the analysis of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and its relationship to sustainable development. Now GHG reduction programs have been coming into effect in many developed countries that have more responsibility for historical CO2 emissions, and the studies have become mature. First, the GHG emissions accounting system is more all-inclusive and the methods are more rational with the effort of IPCC from 1995 and all other researchers related. Second, the responsibility allocation is more rational and fair. Along with the clarity of "carbon transfer" and "carbon leakage", the perspective and methodology for allocating regional CO2 emissions responsibility is turning from production base to consumption base. Third, the decomposition method has become more mature and more complex. For example, the decomposition formulas are including KAYA expression and input-output expression and the decomposition techniques are developed from index analysis to simple average divisia and then adaptive-weighting divisia. Fourth, projection models have become more integrated and long-term. The top-down model and bottom-up model are both inter-embedded and synergetic. Trends above give some advice for the research on CO2 in China, such as emissions factors database construction, deeper-going research on emissions responsibility and structure analysis, promotion of modeling technology and technology-environment database.