Unveiling the Spatial and Sectoral Characteristics of a High-Resolution Emission Inventory of CO2 and Air Pollutants in China

Under the target of carbon neutrality as well as stringent air quality guideline, understanding the spatial characteristics of both greenhouse gases and air pollutants emissions, in particular of their mutual sources, is crucial for assessing the feasibility of achieving their concomitant emission control, which, nevertheless, remains to be unclear yet. To this end, we construct a high-resolution (10 km × 10 km) emission inventory including both CO2 and air pollutants in China, which fosters us an opportunity to examine their spatial and sectoral characteristics. The primary sources for both CO2 and air pollutant emissions are power and industry. Among different subsectors in industry, detailed information indicates cement, iron and steel are the major subsectors for both CO2 and majority of air pollutants. Analysis of the high-resolution spatial distribution indicates that for CO2, 5 % of the grids account for 90 % of the total CO2 emissions, indicative of the existence of spatial heterogeneity. These grids are the major locations with air pollutant emissions as well, i.e., 73 % for SO2 emissions, and more than 50 % for volatile organic compounds (VOCs), CO, NOx, PM10 and PM2.5, stressing the spatial consistency between greenhouse gases and air pollutant emissions. A large portion of emissions concentrate in a relatively small number of grids further implies the possibility to achieve the mutual control of both greenhouse gas emissions and air pollutant emissions, which is useful for future policy in particular of achieving the carbon neutrality and air quality improvement.