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City density and CO2 efficiency

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  • Gudipudi, Ramana
  • Fluschnik, Till
  • Ros, Anselmo García Cantú
  • Walther, Carsten
  • Kropp, Jürgen P.

Abstract

Cities play a vital role in the global climate change mitigation agenda. City population density is one of the key factors that influence urban energy consumption and the subsequent GHG emissions. However, previous research on the relationship between population density and GHG emissions led to contradictory results due to urban/rural definition conundrum and the varying methodologies for estimating GHG emissions. This work addresses these ambiguities by employing the City Clustering Algorithm (CCA) and utilizing the gridded CO2 emissions data. Our results, derived from the analysis of all inhabited areas in the US, show a sub-linear relationship between population density and the total emissions (i.e. the sum of on-road and building emissions) on a per capita basis. Accordingly, we find that doubling the population density would entail a reduction in the total CO2 emissions in buildings and on-road sectors typically by at least 42%. Moreover, we find that population density exerts a higher influence on on-road emissions than buildings emissions. From an energy consumption point of view, our results suggest that on-going urban sprawl will lead to an increase in on-road energy consumption in cities and therefore stresses the importance of developing adequate local policy measures to limit urban sprawl.

Suggested Citation

  • Gudipudi, Ramana & Fluschnik, Till & Ros, Anselmo García Cantú & Walther, Carsten & Kropp, Jürgen P., 2016. "City density and CO2 efficiency," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 352-361.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:91:y:2016:i:c:p:352-361
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2016.01.015
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    14. Ke Luo & Shuo Chen & Shixi Cui & Yuantao Liao & Yu He & Chunshan Zhou & Shaojian Wang, 2023. "Examining the Overall and Heterogeneous Impacts of Urban Spatial Structure on Carbon Emissions: A Case Study of Guangdong Province, China," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(9), pages 1-19, September.
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    17. Paulo Reis Mourao, 2019. "The effectiveness of Green voices in parliaments: Do Green Parties matter in the control of pollution?," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 985-1011, April.
    18. Bin Zhou & Stephan Thies & Ramana Gudipudi & Matthias K B Lüdeke & Jürgen P Kropp & Diego Rybski, 2020. "A Gini approach to spatial CO2 emissions," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(11), pages 1-14, November.
    19. Fan, Meiting & Li, Mengxu & Liu, Jianghua & Shao, Shuai, 2022. "Is high natural resource dependence doomed to low carbon emission efficiency? Evidence from 283 cities in China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    20. Rainald Borck, 2019. "Bevölkerungsdichte, Stadtstruktur und Umweltverschmutzung [Population density, urban structure and air pollution]," Zeitschrift für Immobilienökonomie (German Journal of Real Estate Research), Springer;Gesellschaft für Immobilienwirtschaftliche Forschung e. V., vol. 5(1), pages 161-171, November.
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