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The metallurgy industry plays a very important role in China's economic growth. Due to its energy concentration, the energy consumption of the industry accounts for a large proportion of China's total energy consumption, and thus contributes to carbon emissions. Whether the metallurgy industry can successfully reduce emissions is related to the future of China's carbon emissions targets. In this paper, the logarithmic mean Divisia index model is used to analyze the change in China's carbon dioxide emissions from 1991 to 2014. The empirical results show that there are three main factors affecting the carbon dioxide emissions of China's metallurgy industry. The three factors are labor productivity, energy intensity and industry size. In addition, we further analyzed the deep motivation of carbon dioxide emissions in the industry, and calculated the future emission reduction potentials. Lastly, according to the empirical results, the paper proposes policy recommendations for the future emission reduction of China's metallurgy industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the combustion of fossil fuel became the largest contributing factor of greenhouse gas emissions in China, the growth of energy consumption caused by urbanization has led to significant increase in carbon emissions. Applying both the carbon-emissions-coefficient and the sector-energy-consumption method, we predicted the energy consumption and carbon emissions, explored the characteristics of energy consumption and carbon emissions in different urbanization stages, and analyzed the energy crisis in Shandong which is a typical province in China. The results indicate that in 2015 and 2020, the total primary energy consumption will be 1.57 times and 1.85 times higher than that of in 2009, and the carbon emissions are estimated to be 1.48 times and 1.67 times respectively. The urbanization has distinct positive effects on energy consumption and carbon emissions, and the influence is more obvious in the intermediate-stage than in the early-stage. From a policy perspective, this paper could provide valuable information for planners and decision makers to formulate feasible and practical polices with a view to optimize energy structure and mitigate carbon emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing energy and material consumption associated with global economic growth has resulted in the need for more severe efforts at mitigating global climate change. The iron and steel industry consumes 8% of energy and emits 7% of total CO 2 globally. China's iron and steel industry contributes to 15% of that country's total CO 2 emissions. Therefore, there is an urgent need to explore the possibility of net zero emissions in the iron and steel industry in China to meet China's goal of carbon neutrality before 2060. In the study presented in this paper, the MESSAGEix–China iron and steel model was developed by integrating the process-based technology of the sector into the IIASA's MESSAGEix framework to explore zero CO 2 emission pathways and their associated impacts on resources, energy, and water in China's iron and steel industry up to 2100. We found that there are multiple pathways to achieving zero CO 2 emissions in the Chinese iron and steel industry by the end of the 21st century. More specifically, in all the pathways developed in this study, CO 2 emissions decreased significantly between 2030 and 2060 due to the rapid application of 100% scrap-based Electric Arc Furnaces (EAFs) and hydrogen-based Direct Reduced Iron (DRI)-EAFs steel-making technologies. However, by 2060, there will still be 70–360 Mt of CO 2 emissions from China's iron and steel industry; consequently, carbon sink or negative emission technologies are required to offset this and achieve the country's carbon neutrality goal. Furthermore, technologies for achieving zero emissions differ widely in terms of their impacts on the consumption of materials and energy. Compared to the electric (ELE) scenarios, 25–40% of extra iron ore is consumed in the current and new national policy (NPS) scenarios and the DRI scenarios, but 25–220% of scrap is required. At the same time, 20–150% more energy will be saved in the ELE scenarios than in the NPS and DRI scenarios. Finally, we recommend that policy makers design a cross-cutting strategy to achieve zero CO 2 emissions and enhance efforts for material recycling and the provision of clean energy and water. • There are multiple pathways to achieving net zero emissions in China's iron and steel industry. • Steel outputs are essential for reducing CO 2 emissions and conserving materials, energy, and water. • Hydrogen-based DRI and 100% scrap-EAFs technologies are key to achieving zero emissions. • CO 2 mitigation measures have limited impacts on water consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]