Regional disaggregation of China's national carbon intensity reduction target by reduction pathway analysis

Chinese government announced it is going to reduce carbon intensity in 2020 by 40 to 45% when compared with 2005 levels. One question for how to accomplish this is how to disaggregate national target to provincial level. This study employed a regional disaggregation approach based on a series of principles. Analysis of the carbon intensity revealed three main approaches to reduce CO2 are energy structure adjustment, technical improvement and energy substitution. We proposed a disaggregation model from the view of reduction approaches. Through the data collection and analysis of provinces from 2005 to 2010, a regional disaggregation scheme is carried out in which the national carbon intensity reduction target during the 12th Five-Year Plan was set at 17%. The calculated regional targets were then compared with official published data. The results showed that this method could be useful for disaggregation of the target to the provincial level.