In 2020, Energy Foundation China started to support an analysis examining the impact of land use structure on carbon and criteria air pollutant emissions, which was conducted by China Sustainable Transportation Center, Chinese Land Surveying and Planning Institute, and Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning. Their findings were published in this report in May 2021.

Based on Gridded Database analysis, the report establishes a framework to associate spatial land use data with carbon emissions and air pollution data. It sets up a regression model of land use and carbon emissions, as a provision for the policy scenario analysis targeting the relevance of land use and carbon emissions.

The research pioneers a national-scale empirical study on the relationship between the spatial pattern of land use and its impact on carbon emissions, and shows the strong correlation indeed, including discovering for the first time that carbon emission increases by 1.7 times when the area of construction land doubles. The research also explores how to optimize the territorial spatial structure to support China’s carbon peak and neutrality commitments, and proposes policy recommendations, such as enhancing carbon emission based territorial spatial management and enforcing oversight on land carbon intensity.