Carbon factor inventory and weight in rural communities: a case study of Linpan in western Sichuan

Rural areas play a key role in reducing carbon emissions, and an important aspect of analyzing the low-carbon development trajectory of rural communities is to understand the carbon emission characteristics of rural communities in Linpan, western Sichuan. At present, there is a lack of established standards or standards for quantifying carbon emissions in rural communities at home and abroad. This paper examines the calculation methods of carbon emissions and considers different carbon factors in rural areas. This study takes Xiange Village, Pujiang County, Chengdu City, which is a pillar industry of agriculture and tourism, as the research object to estimate and rank the carbon emissions and internal carbon factor weights of rural communities in Sichuan Province in 2023. The study measured emissions in five major categories: primary industry, tertiary industry, household transportation facilities, household energy equipment and household waste disposal. Principal component analysis (PCA) and multiple regression analysis were used to construct regression models for carbon factors and their related indicators in 5 dimensions, and the weights of carbon factors in each dimension were sorted to determine the most significant carbon factor indicators within each research scope. The results show the distribution of carbon factors in five dimensions in rural communities, and the weight ranking of carbon factors in each dimension and the carbon factor ranking in the full dimension perspective are obtained. This process is used to sort out the carbon factor inventory and to carry out the preliminary carbon factor evaluation system. The results of this study will help to assess the impact of carbon factors on rural communities and lay the foundation for the development of low-carbon policies and technologies in rural areas in the future.