Will the urbanization process influence the peak of carbon emissions in the building sector? A dynamic scenario simulation

Abstract The accelerating urbanization has posed great challenges to China’s carbon-mitigation efforts and global climate change response. However, how does the urbanization process impact the peak of future carbon emissions from buildings is still unclear. This study first establishes a comprehensive urbanization framework from three dimensions. Then, a dynamic scenario simulation model is innovatively constructed by combining the extended Kaya identity and Monte Carlo simulation approach to explore future dynamic evolution trajectory, possible peaks and peaking time of China’s building carbon emissions from 2000 to 2050, considering the uncertainties of factors. Finally, dynamic sensitivity analysis is performed to investigate the contributions of different dimensions of the urbanization. Results show that under the business-as-usual scenario, the rural residential building sector will be the first to reach its energy peak in 2027. Dynamic scenario simulation shows that the building sector will peak at 3.09 (±0.36) Bt CO2 in 2037 (±4). Specifically, the urban residential building sector will peak at 1.27 (±0.18) Bt CO2 in 2040 (±4), while the rural residential building sector will peak at 0.51 (±0.03) Bt CO2 in 2021 (±4) and the commercial building sector will peak in 2038 (±4) at 1.41 (±0.30) Bt CO2. Dynamic sensitivity analysis indicates that rural-urban migration will exert promoting effect on the peaking time and emission peaks of building carbon emissions through the concomitant effects of the urbanization process, i.e., the economic urbanization and space urbanization. Overall, this study can provide a better insight into the impact of urbanization on carbon emission peak and can support governments and decision-makers to formulate effective carbon-mitigation strategies.