Search

With increasingly prominent of climate concerns, promoting carbon neutrality has become a pressing issue. In contrast to most recent studies, which utilized a linear perspective and focused on accelerating carbon neutrality solutions from carbon sources, this study innovatively measures the carbon neutrality index of 30 provinces in China from 2004 to 2020 based on multichannel sources of carbon sinks and sources. It explores threshold effects of its drivers using a spatial autoregressive threshold panel model. The empirical results indicate a non-optimistic overall carbon neutrality situation in China; however, its polarization between provinces has weakened. Furthermore, China's provincial carbon neutrality index has a positive spatial spillover effect, and there is a complex spatial nonlinear relationship between carbon neutrality and its major driving factors, such as human activities and climate change, within the two regimes divided by economic development. These findings offer crucial guidance for China and other developing countries in formulating and implementing effective carbon-neutral planning. For example, developed areas should develop new low-carbon technologies, increase environmental protection expenditures, introduce green and clean enterprises, and expand vegetation areas. Less developed areas must eliminate their reliance on fossil fuel energy, optimize their industrial structure and layout, and strengthen environmental regulations and resource protection awareness. • This paper scientifically quantifies provincial carbon neutrality in China. • We incorporate carbon sinks and sources into the unified accounting system. • Carbon neutrality in adjacent provinces increases 1 unit can lead to that in observing province increases 0.4661 units. • The driving factors of carbon neutrality have clear nonlinear characteristics. • A single threshold effect regarding economic development is found, with a threshold value of 51,761.4012 Yuan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We provide the most up-to-date CO 2 emission inventory for China's cement industry. • We construct the G-LEAP model to project the CO 2 emissions of China's cement industry. • The CO 2 emissions could be reduced maximum by 70 percent in 2060, while the remainder will need to come from technological innovation and new growth horizons. This paper aims to assess the emission reduction potential of combined mitigation technologies in China's cement industry, thus transitioning towards carbon neutrality through a suitable technology portfolio and exploring a low-carbon pathway. The G-LEAP model is constructed for future carbon emission projection, incorporating the cement demand projection and technology application. The pathways based on different technology portfolios are developed to estimate the CO 2 emission trajectory of China's cement industry. We maximize the utilization of currently available technologies and assume a high level of innovative technology diffusion rate in the integrated mitigation pathway to explore the maximum abatement potential of the cement industry. The result shows that short-term mitigation mainly relies on improving energy efficiency and alternative low-carbon fuels, which would contribute 9–12% and 17–22% of the cumulative emissions reduction in the integrated mitigation pathway compared to a frozen scenario. Alternative clinkers can significantly reduce process-related emissions, but the potential is determined by the availability of raw materials, which would contribute 30–39% of the cumulative emission reduction. Post- and oxygen-combustion capture is expected to be deployed by 2030 and contribute about 28–44% to cumulative emission reduction. The technology portfolio in the integrated mitigation pathway would reduce China's cement CO 2 emissions by 63–73% compared to the frozen scenario, and the remainder of CO 2 emission would be 300–400 Mt in 2060, which will need the technological innovation and new growth horizons, such as carbon sink approaches or carbon trading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]