How big is the pressure on carbon emissions in the chemical industry?

2. Characteristics and accounting methods of chemical carbon emissions

At present, China's annual carbon dioxide emissions have reached 10 billion tons, and the carbon emissions of the chemical industry (petroleum processing and coking industry and chemical raw materials and chemical products manufacturing) are less than 500 million tons, far less than the major emissions of electricity, steel, cement, etc., that is to say, from the total point of view, chemical industry is not the first industry. However, from the perspective of intensity, the carbon emission per unit income of chemical industry is higher than the average level of industrial industry; And different regions due to the different economic structure, energy structure and development level, face differential pressure, so that the chemical industry in some areas may meet the development of carbon emissions shackles.

2.1 Limited total emissions

First of all, from the perspective of the total carbon emissions of the whole society, the total global carbon dioxide emissions in 19 years reached 34.2 billion tons, and China's emissions reached 9.8 billion tons. With China's economic development, the proportion of China's carbon emissions has increased simultaneously, especially after China's accession to the WTO, the growth rate of emissions has reached an inflection point, and the growth rate is 2.5%, faster than the global average. At present, China accounts for nearly 30% of global emissions, and has become the world's largest carbon emission country. China's achievements in building a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way and eliminating poverty are obvious to all, but the issue of carbon emissions has always been the focus of the tussle between China and Western developed countries over the right to future development. In this context, China's initiative to peak and net zero, the necessity and foresight of grasping the initiative of climate management is obvious.

From the mechanism of carbon emissions, emissions can be roughly divided into two categories: energy-related emissions and industrial process emissions. The former is easier to understand, the main thing is the carbon emissions caused by the direct combustion of fossil energy, according to the different accounting boundaries will also include the emissions of purchased electricity and heat; The latter has nothing to do with energy consumption, but the emissions generated by specific chemical reactions, such as limestone decomposition and escape in the production of cement glass, metal smelting, synthetic gas conversion to hydrogen production, etc., of which cement production process emissions account for about 75% of China's total industrial process emissions.

From the perspective of China's primary source of carbon emissions, coal accounts for 75% of the share, followed by oil, process emissions and natural gas. From the perspective of primary energy consumption structure, coal accounts for only 58%, indicating that the unit emission intensity of coal is also higher than the average water level of primary energy. The resource situation of "rich coal, less oil and gas shortage" and the high unit emissions of coal have led to the downstream coal industry becoming the focus of China's carbon reduction work.

Based on the highly authoritative CEADS database of the academic community, we analyzed the emission structure of domestic sub-sectors. The original data package included 47 national economic industries, 17 fossil energy combustion emissions and 1 process emissions. It is worth mentioning that for process emissions, the CEADS database only considers the emissions related to cement production, while the process emissions caused by fossil energy input conversion are mainly included in the energy source correlation. From the perspective of the terminal sector that produces carbon emissions, the carbon emissions of China's industrial sector (excluding the power and heat sector) in 2017 were 3.67 billion tons, accounting for 39% of the total emissions, and it is the second largest carbon emission industry after the power and heat field. Further within the industry sector, the carbon emissions of the chemical industry (petroleum processing and coking industry + chemical raw materials and chemical products manufacturing) are about 400 million tons, accounting for only 10.2% of the total industrial emissions and 4% of the total domestic emissions. Carbon emissions in the industrial field are mainly from non-metallic minerals and ferrous metal smelting, which directly accounts for 78% of the total industrial carbon emissions and 30% of the total domestic carbon emissions.

At the same time, combined with the energy structure of carbon emissions and downstream consumption, coal consumption as the main carbon emissions, 73% of its energy consumption is used for electricity and steel, and chemical consumption only accounts for 8%. The proportion of chemical industry in the downstream consumption structure of crude oil and natural gas is 49% and 10%. Therefore, from the perspective of the total emission and proportion of the national dimension, the emission contribution of the chemical industry is very limited.