Search

"Carbon neutrality" refers to the total amount of carbon dioxide or greenhouse gas emissions directly or indirectly produced by a country, business, product, activity or individual over a period of time. Through afforestation, energy saving and emission reduction, etc., to offset the carbon dioxide or greenhouse gas emissions generated by itself, to achieve positive and negative offset, to achieve relative "zero emissions", which belongs to the same term as "carbon peaking" in energy saving and emission reduction. "Carbon" means carbon dioxide, and "neutralization" means a positive and negative balance. The carbon dioxide or greenhouse gas emitted is offset by afforestation, energy saving and emission reduction, which is called "carbon neutrality". Goal decomposition is the process of gradually completing the overall goal according to multiple fields to form a goal system. Target decomposition should be carried out according to the principle of integration and integration. That is, the overall goal is decomposed into sub-goals of different levels and departments, and the synthesis of each sub-goal reflects the overall goal and ensures the realization of the overall goal. This paper aims to study the decomposition of building carbon neutrality goals to sustainable energy development strategies, combining energy conservation and emission reduction with the building industry to reduce environmental pollution and energy waste. Based on the theory of sustainable development, combined with the development characteristics of China's new energy industry, this paper makes a theoretical analysis of the sustainable development of the new energy industry from the three systems of economy, society and ecology. Using the new growth theory and the dissipative structure theory, the restricting effect of the depletion of basic energy on economic development and the influence on the alternation of industrial structure are discussed. The experimental results of this paper show that the building energy consumption intensity will reach 1.43tC/10,000 yuan, 1.25tC/10,000 yuan in the ideal scenario, and 1.1tC/10,000 yuan in the low-carbon scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As major strategic development areas in China, the provinces around the Yangtze River are facing the pressure of large aggregate CO 2 emissions and high per capita CO 2 emissions. The study on the pathway of reducing CO 2 emissions and increasing carbon sequestration will help China better clarify the ways realize the goals of carbon peak and carbon neutrality as soon as possible. In this paper, the extended STIRPAT model and OLS regression were used to establish a prediction model to estimate the CO 2 emissions during 2010–2060 under different scenarios. Meanwhile, the InVEST model was used to estimate the carbon sequestration, and the comparison with the CO 2 emissions was analyzed. The results show that Qinghai and Yunnan have achieved the goal of carbon neutrality in 2010. Under the low-carbon and energy-saving scenario and the baseline scenario, all provinces within the study area are anticipated to attain their emissions peak by 2030 or earlier, and the CO 2 emissions peak value of the whole study area is 3111 Mt and 3199 Mt, respectively. While under the high emissions scenario, only Chongqing and Qinghai will reach the emissions peak in 2030, and the whole study area will reach the emissions peak in 2040, with peak value of 3470 Mt. Under the three scenarios, the whole study area cannot achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. Only Sichuan and Hubei can achieve carbon neutrality in 2050 and 2060 under the low-carbon and energy-saving scenario. All provinces and municipalities in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River are facing huge pressure of emissions reduction. The research reveals that the goals of carbon peak and carbon neutrality should be achieved by developing clean energy, transforming industrial structure, increasing carbon sequestration and improving carbon emissions trading system. [Display omitted] • The CO 2 emissions showed a pattern of increase during 2010–2020. • The whole study area will achieve carbon peak by 2040 or earlier. • The whole study area cannot achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. • The realization pathway of carbon peak and neutrality was proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon emission trading, a market-incentive environmental regulation, plays a critical role in leading China towards the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality. To improve the national carbon emission trading in China, we analyze the effects of the policy in pilot provinces and pilot A-share listed firms from 2008 to 2016. Particularly, to explore the pilot policy's environmental and financial impacts, this paper applies a difference-in-difference method. After the robustness check, the results confirm the carbon emission trading pilot's significantly positive impact at both firm- and province-level regarding carbon emission reduction. Meanwhile, corporate innovation seems to partially mediate the relationship between the policy and corporate carbon emission reduction. Plus, the policy promotes firms' market-based financial performance but such impact on accounting-based financial performance is insignificant. Ultimately, the operational mechanism of the policy is proved to be effective. In this paper, industry- and firm-level carbon emissions databases are established via environmental extended input-output table, which fill the research gap of China's firm-level carbon emissions. To ensure the reliability of results, the list of covered firms is sorted out manually in accordance with the disclosed data of seven carbon trading markets. Our results are meaningful for avoid productivity reduction and mechanism re-design in the context of the national carbon emission trading launched in 2021. Specifically, encouraging firms to further improve their productivity and competitiveness by innovation could eventually achieve a win-win situation between economic performance and environmental merits in the long run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promoting low-carbon development in the iron and steel industry (ISI) is essential for China to achieve the carbon neutrality targets. This paper separately adopts the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) technique and the Mean Impact Value (MIV) method to analyze the impact of driving factors on the CO 2 emissions of ISI in the historical and future dimensions. Furthermore, this paper establishes the extreme learning machine model optimized by the bat algorithm (BA-BP) to explore the carbon emission reduction pathways of ISI in the business-as-usual (BAU) scenario, the low-speed, medium-speed and high-speed development scenarios considering the constraints of carbon neutrality targets. The results reveal that: (1) Production capacity and energy efficiency are important drivers of CO 2 emissions in ISI; (2) The emission reduction situation is not optimistic under the BAU scenario, and it is difficult to accomplish the carbon neutrality goals by 2060; (3) Under the most ideal emission reduction pathway (corresponding to the high-speed development scenario), ISI will reach its peak in 2022 with the peak value of 2143.42 MtCO 2. Compared to the peak year, the CO 2 emissions will be reduced by 654.69 MtCO 2 and 1558.61 MtCO 2 in 2030 and 2050, respectively. Moreover, the achievement of short-term and long-term emission reduction targets depends on production capacity decline and technological progress, respectively. The optimal emission reduction pathway provides a reference for ISI to formulate periodic emission reduction targets. • The improved extreme learning machine is employed to predict the carbon emissions. • The emission reduction pathways are explored under the carbon neutrality target. • Controlling production capacity is a crucial reduction strategy. • The energy rebound effect is supposed to be weakened. • The application of advanced technologies will greatly promote emission reduction. [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]

• The influencing factors of carbon prices in China's carbon market are analysed. • The influencing factors and historical data are combined to predict the carbon price. • The EEMD-BP-ELM model and the CHINAGEM-E model are constructed and combined. Carbon price is one of the core indicators of the carbon market. Making accurate predictions of carbon prices based on insight into the volatility characteristics of the carbon market will not only provide a scientific basis for investors and regulators to make decisions and greatly promote emission reduction, but also effectively promote the healthy development of the carbon financial market. Based on the historical carbon price data of the national carbon market, this paper constructs the EEMD-BP-ELM model to predict the high and low frequency components of China's future carbon price. On this basis, according to China's goal of peaking carbon emissions before 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality before 2060, the CHINAGEM-E model is used to predict the trend component of the carbon price under the baseline and the 2060 carbon neutral scenarios. Finally, the trend component is combined with the high and low frequency components to obtain the price range from 2022 to 2060. We find that under the baseline scenario, China's carbon price range in 2060 is [343, 785] CNY/tCO2, while under the 2060 carbon neutral scenario, this price range is [1543, 3531] CNY/tCO2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Constructing a new welfare function considering economy, equity and ecology. • Optimizing carbon emission pathways from multiple perspectives. • Focusing on the emission pathways in China achieving the ambitious targets. With the increasing climate warming, reducing carbon emissions has gradually become a consensus around the world. However, the process of carbon emission reduction will inevitably lead to the transformation of economic structure, industrial structure and energy structure, which will bring huge changes in economic output, employment and other aspects, thus affecting the overall social welfare and equity. Therefore, it is particularly important for each country to determine a scientific and effective carbon emission pathway which take into account both social development and climate targets. As the largest carbon emitter, China has put forward the targets of carbon peak and carbon neutrality. In this regard, the corresponding carbon emission reduction scenarios are designed according to the new situation of China's emission reduction in this paper, firstly. Furthermore, under the premise of maximizing social welfare, an optimization model which integrating economic growth-equity-environment is developed to determine China's emission pathways under different scenarios from 2020 to 2050. Besides quantitatively showing the future total amount and peak value of carbon emissions under different scenarios, the results can also identify its evolution pathway over time. Therein, the peak under most scenarios will concentrate in 2025–2030, which is about 10.7 to 11.8 billion tons. With the increasingly stringent constraints on carbon emission reduction, the cost of emission reduction will increase correspondingly, but the overall social welfare will increase slightly. Finally, our findings provide practical guidance on achieving carbon emission reduction and enlightenments on policymaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emissions trading system (ETS) is a cost-effective way towards achieving the carbon neutrality goal. Based on the gaps in the research on carbon allowance allocation vis-à-vis the carbon neutrality target, this study examines how to allocate carbon allowances equitably and effectively among Chinese provinces. Different from the previous research that mainly considers responsibility, ability, and potential of equity dimensions, this paper proposes a composite indicator allocation approach based on the equity of history, demand, contribution, and guarantee, and it also employs the entropy method and expert survey method to obtain the indicator weight values in different scenarios. Results show that the carbon allowances of some provinces, such as the forest-rich province of Yunnan, vary significantly in five scenarios, but little differences are observed for some provinces, such as the high historical emissions province of Shanxi. More provinces achieve data envelopment analysis efficiency in the preferred scenario. Compared with the objective scenario, the required emission reduction in the preferred gross domestic product (GDP) scenario is 231 million tonnes less, and the emission reduction cost is 190 billion yuan less. It is suggested that the Chinese government should adopt the allocation scheme in preference for the GDP scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]