Low-carbon Oriented Methodology of Energy-related Carbon Accounting and Its Application in Campus

Abstract:

Quantitative research based on carbon accounting is the key of low-carbon campus construction and management. The achievements of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), World Resources Institute (WRI) and China Youth Climate Action Network (CYCAN) were integrated to develop a new method on energy-related carbon accounting in campus, which was then applied to the analysis of energy-related carbon emission in one of the university in Shanghai. The results showed an increasing trend of carbon emission from 2004 to 2012, with an average annual growth rate of 5.75%. Carbon emission in 2012 was 41112 ton CO2-eq, in which electricity-related emission accounted for 68.7%, and gasoline-related emission accounted for 25.0%. This study compared the low-carbon campus constructions in China with those abroad and showed that the integral and achievable low-carbon planning is likely to lead to a significant decrease of CO2 emission in western countries. Low-carbon in campus was redefined as a lower-carbon condition with continuously improvement and high energy efficiency compared to the baseline condition in campus. A low-carbon campus managing strategy was proposed based on energy-related carbon accounting analysis.