Global warming has started gathering the attention from all over the world. China participates proactively in the activity to mitigate the global climate change and promulgated “Chinese national program to deal with climate change” on June 1st 2007. The developed cities which are located in the middle or the lower streams of Yangtze River contribute to the emission of greenhouse gases in China, and Shanghai is one of the largest greenhouse gases emitting cities. As the most economically developed city in China, Shanghai should take the initiative to undertake the obligations on the reduction of carbon emission. Shanghai would be a good model to other cities in China to deal with climate change. In order to provide decision-making basis and examples for developed cities in China to deal with the climate change crisis, IESD and HSBC carry out the research on reduction of carbon emission in Shanghai in response to climate change and create a precedent for the city which can reduce carbon emission with empirical study, which can be the forefront of the domestic research.

      With technical methods such as systematic analysis, scenario analysis and mathematical modeling, the total carbon emissions, carbon sink and net volume of carbon source, and to further predict the long-term trend in carbon emissions in Shanghai are estimated. The result of the research shows that main energy consumption is caused by industries in Shanghai and Shanghai entered the rapidest period of energy consumption since 1990. The quantity of carbon emission caused by the energy activities reached fifty-eight million and fifty thousand tc in 2005. At the same time, however, the capacity of carbon sink in Shanghai has been increased. The quantity of carbon source and sink in Chongming County has been analyzed in the research for the first time. Overall, the net carbon emission in Shanghai is still on an upward trend, while the net carbon emission per ten thousand RMB of GDP declined to 0.58tc/10000 yuan in 2005. It shows that the activities for carbon emission in Shanghai have been effective. According to the research, Shanghai should positively adjust the industrial structure and its layout on the basis of the economic growth, so that the energy structure and efficiency would be further improved to increase the carbon sink in preventing the climate change in Shanghai.