3.2.6. Overall Trends

After comprehensively considering above analysis of each section, if we review the carbon flow Sankey diagrams combing demand side and supply side, we can discern the overall trends and interpret the inherent dilemma and of China's energy low-carbon transition during 2005–2015. In this period, China was still in the stage of rapid industrialization and urbanization investing huge amounts of infrastructure construction and fixed assets (China invested CNY 4 trillion in infrastructure construction during 2008–2010 [38]), which kept the demand for structural materials huge and growing. This made the industry represented by steel, chemical and non-ferrous metal maintain booming, some even over-capacity. These energy-intensive industries relied on coal and electricity, which brought difficulty for the energy system to cut coal consumption and to decarbonize. Meanwhile, the structure of energy final services did have changed. An obvious trend was that people's demand for high-quality life kept increasing, for example, the demand for passenger transportation, hygiene and communication services grew rapidly. Accordingly, the energy consumption and carbon emissions underlying the cars, planes, hot water supply and modern appliances increased rapidly, which could be new driving forces for energy-related carbon emissions. Discerning the trends may help policy makers to formulate more effective emission reduction strategies.
