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China aims to peak carbon dioxide (CO 2) emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. Currently, 9% of China's CO 2 emissions come from the transportation sector. Transportation decarbonization is important for China to achieve carbon neutrality. By representing the transportation sector with nine segments and 20 modes in Global Change Analysis Model, this study explores China's transportation decarbonization and potential role of electricity and hydrogen at the segment-mode level under three illustrative scenarios – policy scenario (PS), 2060 carbon-neutrality scenario (CN60), and 2050 carbon-neutrality scenario (CN50). The PS reflects the continuation of current low-carbon policies and trends, while the CN60 and the CN50 represent China's pursuit of net-zero emissions before 2060 and 2050, respectively. Results in the PS show a gradual saturation of service demand and an increasingly efficient modal structure for China's future transportation. Compared to the PS, the two carbon neutrality scenarios specifically emphasize the importance of decarbonizing transportation fuel structure after 2030. In the CN60, China's transportation emissions peak in 2035 and fall to 0.36 GtCO 2 in 2050; electricity and hydrogen provide 43% and 12% of transportation energy in 2050, respectively. The CN50 features further penetration of low-carbon fuels to reduce transportation carbon intensity, with transportation emissions peaking in 2030 and declining to only 0.21 GtCO 2 in 2050. In 2050 of the CN50, the share of electricity and hydrogen in China's transportation energy increases to 53% and 16%, respectively, with near-zero emissions being achieved in urban, rural and business passenger segments, as well as in car and bus; hydrogen provides 17% and 26% of China's airplane and ship energy consumption, respectively. • A segment-mode analysis of China's transportation decarbonization is conducted. • Three scenarios inform transportation decarbonization effort for carbon neutrality. • Transportation emissions peak in 2030–2035 and fall to 0.21–0.36 GtCO 2 in 2050. • Car could be 94% electrified and achieve near-zero emissions in 2050. • Hydrogen could provide 17% and 26% of airplane and ship energy consumption in 2050. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to achieve the Paris Agreement goals of keeping the temperature rise well below 2 °C or even 1.5 °C, all countries would need to make fair and ambitious contributions to reducing emissions. A vast majority of countries have adopted reduction targets by 2030 in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). There are many alternative ways to analyze the fairness of national mitigation contributions. This article uses a model framework based on six equity principles of effort-sharing, to allocate countries’ reduction targets under global emissions scenarios consistent with meeting the Paris climate goals. It further compares these allocations with the NDCs. The analysis shows that most countries need to adopt more ambitious reduction targets by 2030 to meet 2 °C, and even more for 1.5 °C. In the context of 2 °C, the NDCs of the United States of America and the European Union lack ambition with respect to the approaches that emphasize responsibility; China’s NDC projection falls short of satisfying any approach in 2030. In the context of 1.5 °C, only India, by implementing its most ambitious efforts by 2030, could be in line with most equity principles. For most countries, the NDCs would use most of their allowed emissions space for the entire 21 st century by 2030, posing a major challenge to transform to a pathway consistent with their fair contributions in the long-term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Kyoto Protocol inspires the idea of establishing emissions trading scheme, regarding economic-effectiveness as a significant factor to achieve reduction targets and meet obligation. With this trend, marginal abatement cost curves (MACCs) have been used in climate policy analysis under general equilibrium framework, and have been proved a valid device to highlight the superiority of ETS. This paper focuses on the comparison of MACCs at industry level in China, derived by us from CGE, GCAM and TIMES respectively. It's clear that there is no dynamic adjustment process in these models, so we use linear interpolation method to introduce carbon tax to simulate actual situation. Meanwhile, we also take data from potential and cost study into account. To make our work more targeted, we pay close attention to energy-intensive industries with high carbon emissions level such as electricity, cement and steel, which are most likely to be covered in carbon market. The results indicate how MACCs change and illustrate why they change, depending on applied methodology and underlying assumptions. As we ignore the indirect effects, for instance, tax distortions and non-financial costs during above simulation, the emissions abatement cost we achieve by using integral calculus won’t be equivalent to real cost. Therefore, it's a wise decision for government department and research institute to be cautious when using MACCs as basis of policy making and academic studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Towards a low carbon world, the global emission space in the future will be very restricted, which will have a significant impact on the deployment of energy infrastructure system. A low carbon energy system will be the key to achieve 2 degrees trajectory. This paper addresses this issue by combining the Equitable Access to Sustainable Development model (EASD) and the Global Change Assessment model (GCAM) to analyze the development of regional energy consumption and power generation in the process of combating climate change. GCAM, a dynamic-recursive integrated model, has divided the world into 14 regions. Under the long term targets resulting in harmonized radiative forcing levels, the carbon constraints of all regions are quantified in EASD through the allocation based on the per capita, the convergence and the status-quo basis, respectively. These constraints are then set as the policy scenarios in GCAM simulations. The findings underline the substantial reductions in coal consumption and huge growth in renewable energy and nuclear in all regions. The fossil fuel consumption of developed regions has to plummet at once on the per capita basis and peak before 2020 on both the convergence and the status-quo basis. In developing regions, the nuclear and the coal/gas with carbon capture and storage (CCS) gradually dominate the power supply. CCS and nuclear are the two main technology choices for electricity generation in developed regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]