Behind the Data
A Comparative Analysis of China’s Carbon Emission Data from Different Institutions
English, Chinese
JUL 2023
Report
Climate Governance Energy Transition Quantitative Modeling Tools
Summary:
This report offers a comparative analysis of the methodologies and results associated with the most recently released China carbon emissions data by ten domestic and foreign research institutions. This data was directly or indirectly calculated using official Chinese sources, and is timely, continuous, and consistent, allowing analysts to track, evaluate, forecast, and perform international comparisons of China’s carbon emissions.
This report focuses on energy-related CO2 emissions and includes the following features: 1) The analysis is based on the latest methodology and emissions data released by each institution as of the first quarter of 2023; 2) The analysis includes the carbon emissions databases released by domestic Chinese research institutions in recent years; 3) The report maps out energy data sources and relations between databases, and provides an analysis of differences in energy data accounting methods.
In addition, this report estimates China’s 2013-2021 annual serial baseline carbon emissions data based on official data and uses this as a benchmark to measure the gaps between the carbon emissions data of each institution and China’s official data. The report finds that the carbon emissions calculated in all databases are either directly or indirectly based on China's official energy statistics, but no organization currently has emission accounting boundaries that are fully consistent with official Chinese boundaries.
The report finds that when compared to China's official emission accounts, international research institutions generally report higher carbon emissions. These discrepancies in carbon emission data are primarily due to differences in accounting boundaries, emissions factors, accounting methods, energy data sources, sectoral divisions, fuel classifications, and calorific value used to convert fuel use to standard units.
Suggested citation:
Li Xindi, Yang Li. (2023). Behind the Data – A Comparative Analysis of China's Carbon Emission Data from Different Institutions. Beijing: Institute for Global Decarbonization Progress.
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