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China’s economy grew against the trend in 2020, despite the global recession in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.-With the growth of the national economy and the increase in individual disposable income in the past 20 years (2001–2020), the level of motorization in China’s living, production, and service sectors dramatically increased. Mass production and the use of motor vehicles led to a significant increase in the demand for natural resources such as land, water, and energy. Although China has taken several measures in recent years to achieve its carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals, resulting in a slightly lower increase in energy consumption (6.3%) than GDP growth, total energy consumption is still high, with a total of 4.98 billion tons of standard coal in 2020 alone. According to the data from the Statistical Review of World Energy (2021), China has the highest share of primary energy consumption in the world.
Transportation produces 13.4% of total CO2 emissions in 2020, carbon emission reduction in this sector is essential to achieve “dual carbon” goals. Motor vehicle manufacturing and use not only bring about more energy consumption, but also more environmental pollution, especially during the usage of motor vehicles. Figure 1 provides statistics on the changes in motor vehicle parking and motor vehicle pollutant emissions in China from 2015–2020. Due to the change in the statistical caliber of China’s motor vehicle mobile source emissions in 2019, the data of motor vehicle pollutant emissions had larger fluctuations and changed after 2019. The changes in motor vehicle pollutant emissions were synchronized with those in motor vehicle parking, which continued to increase from 2019–2020. Hence, motor vehicle pollutant emissions in China and the emissions of four atmospheric pollutants (carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide, hydrocarbons, and particulate matter) decreased marginally.
Figure 1. Motor vehicle parking and motor vehicle pollutant emissions
Note: In 2019, the statistical caliber of mobile source emissions was changed to adopt the Mobile Source Census Methodology and Emission Factors from the Second National Census of Pollution Sources in China(Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People’s Republic of China,2021). The main changes include mobile source activity levels (average annual mileage, time of use) and emission factors, and the evaporative hydrocarbon (HC) emissions from the addition of motor vehicles.
Another serious problem arising from the dramatic increase in motor vehicle parking is more road traffic accident damage, putting pressure on economic growth and economic security. Kopits & Cropper (2005) used the Kuznets curve to describe the inverted U-shaped relationship between economic growth, motorization rates, and accident risk by examining panel data for 88 countries from 1963–1999, i.e., the risk of traffic fatalities increased with increasing per capita income and motorization rate until per capita income reached $8,600 in most countries/regions. Although China has managed to reach this inflection point in advance, road traffic accidents are still causing a lot of damage. Figure 2 illustrates the number of road traffic accidents and casualties, and direct property damage from traffic accidents in China as motor vehicle parking increased from 2015 to 2020. Economic development increases the level of motorization, along with more energy consumption, environmental pollution, and the occurrence of traffic accidents. Worse still, traffic accidents have a negative impact on ecological safety, life, survival, and economic security, and constrain the country’s economic growth (Jin et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2019).
Figure 2. Motor vehicle ownership and traffic accident damage consequences