Carbon peak forecast and low carbon policy choice of transportation industry in China: scenario prediction based on STIRPAT model

As the second largest CO2 emission department, transportation industry’s carbon peak and carbon reduction are very important for China to smoothly achieve carbon peak by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060. This paper analyzes the influencing factors from the perspectives of population, economy, technology and transportation equipment structure, subdivides 20 scenarios to predict the carbon emissions of the transportation industry of the whole China and various regions based on scenario analysis method, explores the carbon peak path, and puts forward corresponding policy recommendations. The study found that (1) from the overall trend of carbon emissions, the total carbon emissions of China’s transportation industry showed an overall upward trend from 2010 to 2019 while the growth rate of carbon emissions showed a downward trend. (2) From the perspective of influencing factors, population size, urbanization rate, economic scale, traffic development, traffic carbon intensity, and highway mileage have positive effect on the growth rate of China’s transportation CO2 emissions. The increase in the proportion of energy structure and railway cargo turnover has the negative effect on carbon emissions in the transportation industry. (3) From the prediction results at the national level, technological breakthroughs have a limited effect on carbon emission reduction in China’s transportation industry, while structural equipment optimization has the most significant effect on its emission reduction. When technological breakthroughs and equipment structure optimization are carried out simultaneously, the carbon emission reduction effect is the best. The carbon peak of China’s transportation industry would achieve as early as 2030, with a peak range of 70,355.54–84,136.17 million tons. (4) From the perspective of prediction results at the regional level, the provinces with rapid population growth and per capita GDP growth, the provinces with rapid population growth and per capita GDP growth, and the provinces with low population growth and per capita GDP growth should control their average annual growth rate of carbon emissions of the transportation industry to 1.13%, 0.72% and 0.58% respectively in 2019–2030, in order to ensure the achievements of the carbon peak target.