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After the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals were proposed, different institutions and scholars carried out research on China's medium- and long-term mitigation pathways. Through the literature review of China's research on carbon neutrality, this paper finds that the zero-carbon energy transition is the key to achieving carbon neutrality. The main driving factors of reducing energy-related carbon emissions include the cleanliness of primary and secondary energy supply systems, the electrification of energy consumption and the development of hydrogen energy, energy efficiency improvement, carbon capture and storage (CCS), and negative emissions. Furthermore, based on the literature, this paper conducts a quantitative comparative analysis, and selects key indicators for comparative analysis and summary from seven dimensions, including economic and social development, carbon emission pathways, primary energy consumption, final energy consumption, final hydrogen energy consumption, electricity demand and supply, and installed capacity and structure of power generation. Main conclusions are as follows: (i) In terms of carbon emission pathways, the institutions generally believed that China will peak carbon emissions around 2028 and achieve carbon neutrality between 2050 and 2060. Achieving net-zero or near-zero emissions first in the power sector is the key to carbon neutrality across the society; (ii) In terms of energy supply, it is a consensus to increase the proportion of clean energy and reduce carbon emissions from the source. The proportion of clean energy in primary energy will increase to more than 85%, and the proportion of clean energy power generation and installed capacity will reach more than 90%; (iii) In terms of energy use, electricity will become the core of final energy consumption in the future. The predicted electricity consumption across the society will range 14.3–18.4 PWh, and the predicted electrification rate will exceed 65%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the theoretical mechanism by which urbanization and consumption structure upgrading exert an impact on carbon emissions in the context of promoting higher quality and efficiency in urbanization, advancing the transition and upgrading of consumption structure, and achieving carbon peaking and carbon neutrality (“dual carbon”) goals. By establishing an extended STIRPAT model and an intermediary model, this paper takes nine prefecture-level cities in Fujian Province from 2011 to 2021 as samples to investigate the effects of urbanization and consumption structure upgrading on carbon emission reduction in Fujian Province, revealing the interrelationship and transmission mechanism among the three. The results of this study show that: (i) The relationship between urbanization and carbon emissions in Fujian Province from 2011 to 2021 shows an inverted U-shaped curve, i.e. urbanization accelerated carbon emissions in the early stage and inhibited carbon emissions in the later stage; (ii) the regional heterogeneity analysis shows that under the current urbanization background, the upgrading of consumption structure in western and southern Fujian can significantly reduce carbon emissions, while the relationship between consumption structure upgrading and carbon emission reduction in eastern Fujian is not significant; (iii) the upgrading of consumption structure can help achieve and promote carbon emission reduction through increasing the proportions of the tertiary industry and immaterial consumption and enhancing the level of culture and education, while exerting little effect on carbon emission reduction through consumption in transportation, communication and health care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Now, China has made it clear that it will strive to have CO2 emissions peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060 (the "dual carbon" goals), based on the logic that carbon peaking is a prerequisite for carbon neutrality. The year 2021 is the first year of China's 14th Five-Year Plan period. As the main battlefields to achieve the "dual carbon" goals, cities are also required to build on their pathways towards such goals under new conditions. Based on the progress China has made with pilot cities for low-carbon development and the discussion on 60 cities by category, this paper identifies the commonalities and differences between Chinese cities' pathways towards carbon peaking, and concludes that Chinese cities need to peak their carbon emissions in an organized and step-wise way on the basis of classification and according to their own development level and emission characteristics. In light of the above conclusion, this paper provides feasible suggestions for Chinese cities' carbon peaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the analogy where achieving the "carbon peaking and carbon neutrality" goals (the "dual carbon" goals) is compared to a battle, energy is the main battlefield, and electric power the main force. The low-carbon transformation path of the electric power industry exerts fundamental impact on progress towards carbon peaking and carbon neutrality of the whole society. Therefore, this paper first analyzes challenges and opportunities faced by the electric power industry to achieve the "dual carbon" goals; secondly, on the basis of deep low-carbon, zero-carbon and negative-carbon scenarios of the electric power industry, this paper quantifies and delves into the consumption structure of primary energy and final energy, as well as the future development positioning and trend of different categories of energy. Based on the research results, this paper proposes low-carbon transformation path of the electric power system at the stages of carbon peaking, deep low-carbon and carbon neutrality, and analyzes the trend of power supply cost changes in different scenarios. On this basis, a series of implementation key points and measures are proposed to adapt to green and low-carbon transformation of the electric power industry, covering areas such as coal-fired electric power development positioning, new energy development and utilization, diversified supply and demand, new energy industry chain, and power supply costs, and so forth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strategies to combat climate change may be based on mitigation of the phenomenon or on adaptation to its consequences. This paper aims to identify the driving factors of the choice between these two categories of strategies in the context of urban climate plans. The fight against climate change being characterized by a logic of free riding, the situation tilts the balance towards adaptation strategies in an urban context, to the detriment of mitigation. This hypothesis is tested here through a review of the existing literature on urban climate strategies. This study shows that, counterintuitively, mitigation prevails over adaptation in urban climate strategies up to now. This paper explores the explanations for this seemingly paradoxical situation. We argue that a big part of the explanation has to do with the institutional context of urban climate strategies, specifically the decision-making capacities of municipalities, or the fact that they take part in international networks promoting mitigation over adaptation. Other explanations rely on the cost/benefit impact of adopting mitigation or adaptation, like the collateral local/private benefits of urban climate strategies that are often bigger with mitigation than adaptation. Another finding is that there is no systematic planning making it compulsory to choose between mitigation and adaptation strategies, as they are in some instances complementary, providing co-benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's automotive industry has been dedicated to a series of carbon-reduction efforts and has strived for comprehensive green and low-carbon transformation in order to achieve carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals. On the basis of automobiles' whole life-cycle (WLC) carbon emission accounting, this paper calculates life-cycle carbon emissions per vehicle, proposes green and low-carbon development path for China's automotive industry, quantifies and analyzes implicated carbon-reduction potential, and puts forth suggestions for high-quality green and low-carbon development of China's automotive industry. The first is to establish a sound standard and data management system; the second is to promote research, development and application of low-carbon materials and low-carbon technologies; the third is to accelerate the pace of fostering a new consumption model in the automotive industry. The research results can further support national policy-making regarding carbon emissions, promote corporations' research, development and application of low-carbon technologies, encourage green and low-carbon consumption, and lead the automotive industry to achieve WLC neutrality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the implementation of new environmental policies such as "carbon peak" and "carbon neutrality", reducing carbon emissions through the development of clean technology in the automobile industry has become a key priority. However, the high cost of researching and developing green technology has led to high vehicle prices, which poses a major barrier to expanding the market share of such vehicles. The decision of whether to invest in research and development (R&D) has become a challenging one for automobile manufacturers. In this paper, we propose a game theory analysis scheme to study the R&D investment decisions of two original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) — an electric vehicle manufacturer (EM) and a fuel vehicle manufacturer (FM) — who, respectively, produce electric vehicles (EVs) and fuel vehicles (FVs). Since the manufacturers exhibit bounded rationality and their R&D investment decision-making involves a long-term, continuously learning and adjusting process, we model this dynamic R&D investment decision-making process as an evolutionary game to study manufacturers' stable evolutionary behaviors in optimal R&D investment strategies. Different from previous literatures, where the prices for vehicles with high or low R&D investment were predetermined, we optimize the price of each vehicle, market shares, and optimal utilities of OEMs using a two-stage Stackelberg game for each investment strategy profile. Additionally, we use the Personal Carbon Trading (PCT) mechanism to help reduce carbon emissions. The main contribution of this paper is exploring the conditions for the evolutionary stable strategies (ESSs) of the evolutionary game based on the optimal utilities of the OEMs under different strategy profiles. The impact of preference parameters and green R&D coefficients on the OEMs' decisions, as well as consumers' purchase choices are also discussed. Finally, numerical simulations using real-world data are conducted to verify the theoretical results on ESSs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the variations in cross-correlations among the carbon trading market, geopolitical risk (GPR) and economic policy uncertainty (EPU), focusing on their multifractality and asymmetric properties. Therefore, the study employs the multifractal detrended cross-correlation analysis (MF-DCCA) and multifractal asymmetric detrended cross-correlation analysis (MF-ADCCA) approaches to examine these relationships from a three-dimensional perspective. Also, the study looks into cross-correlations at different phases of carbon trading. Our findings reveal that the multifractal cross-correlations between the carbon trading market and GPR or EPU exhibit anti-persistence and asymmetry. The anti-persistent cross-correlations are notably stronger when GPR experiences a downtrend or when EPU undergoes an uptrend. Furthermore, distinct fluctuation patterns emerge across various trends and scales on Hurst surfaces. In the short term, the carbon trading market exhibits heightened sensitivity to changes in GPR or EPU when they rise or fall. The cross-correlations remain multifractal, anti-persistent and asymmetric across different stages of carbon trading. Notably, the multifractality of cross-correlations is most pronounced for the series pair EUA/GPR in Phase II and for the series pair EUA/UK EPU in Phase III and Phase IV. Except for the series pair EUA/UK EPU in Phase II, the anti-persistent cross-correlations are more pronounced during uptrend than downtrend for the other series pairs. Moreover, the series pair EUA/UK EPU exhibits the highest degree of asymmetry at all stages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By adopting the consumption-based accounting (CBA) method of carbon emissions based on national carbon intensity (NCI), using the International Trade Centre (ITC) database, the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR), and the World Bank database, and taking 13 countries and regions including the European Union (EU) countries and the United States (US) as research samples, this paper conducts an accounting of the embodied carbon in trade between China and other major economies in the world, clarifies the responsibilities China has taken for foreign consumption-based carbon emissions, and analyzes the various driving factors of China's embodied carbon in exports. The findings are as follows: (i) Most of the developed economies have higher consumption-based emissions than production-based emissions, which is contrary to most of the developing economies, with developing countries bearing responsibilities for 15–20% of the consumption-based carbon emissions for developed countries; (ii) the carbon emissions of countries and regions are closely related to the embodied carbon in trade, with a correlation coefficient of 0.96. (iii) China has taken responsibility for a large amount of carbon emissions from foreign consumer demand, most of which are from the US, the EU, ASEAN, and Japan, respectively accounting for 3.8%, 3.5%, 2.3%, and 1.2% of China's production-based carbon emissions in 2019; (iv) technique effect is the main driving factor for China's embodied carbon in trade, while the specific driving factors vary by industry. Based on the above analysis, it is suggested that China should: (i) consider the trade factor in its efforts to achieve carbon peaking and carbon neutrality; (ii) adopt differentiated measures to reduce trade-related emissions for specific industries; (iii) fully consider China's demand for carbon peaking and carbon neutrality in international negotiations; (iv) give more support to the research on and measurement of consumption-based carbon emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper summarizes the new progress in building China's national carbon market since 2020, and analyzes the connotation of China's carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals ("dual carbon" goals) and its significance to socio-economic development in China. Through case analysis, this paper expounds the role of China's recent carbon trading activities in promoting the transition toward green and low-carbon socio-economic development. On that basis, this paper conceives a top-level design for building the national carbon market that serves the "dual carbon" goals: building and improving the national carbon market that fundamentally serves as an emission reduction tool, developing the institutions and systems of the national carbon market with a focus on emission cap, creating a multilevel and diversified carbon trading scheme centered on the national carbon market, exploring a mechanism that takes carbon emission reduction as the core and promotes the synergistic effect of the carbon market with other environmental rights trading markets, and pursuing the healthy and orderly development of carbon finance that aims to serve carbon emission reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Power industry is the largest carbon emission sector in China. Therefore, this industry will play an important role in achieving the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals ("dual carbon" goals) for the whole society. For this purpose, it is critical to balance four relationships, i.e. relationship between carbon mitigation and energy security, carbon peaking in the short term and carbon neutrality in the long term, the coordinated carbon mitigation in power industry and other industries, and technical feasibility and economic efficiency. This paper proposes the China's Energy Interconnection scenario to promote carbon peaking and carbon neutrality of the society, which can be divided into three stages, i.e. peaking carbon emissions before 2030, rapid emission reduction during 2030–2050, and comprehensive carbon neutrality before 2060. It is expected that the power system will achieve zero emissions before other industries and contribute negative emissions afterwards, providing emission space for carbon neutrality in other industries across the society. Looking into the future, China's electricity demand will continue to grow. Clean energy will become the main power source, the use of coal-fired power will be gradually reduced, and gas-fired power will undertake the function of peak-load regulation. Faster progress will be made in forming an overall grid pattern with ultra-high voltage (UHV) grid as the backbone and featuring "west-to-east and north-to-south power transmission, a balanced energy mix, and transnational power interconnection." Finally, this paper discusses a new-type of power system characterized by a high proportion of electricity generated from clean energy, high ratio of electric and electronic equipment, and a high proportion of power transmission and reception, together with summer and winter high load periods, and points out the challenges faced by the new-type power system with a high proportion of renewable energy sources in terms of flexibility, safety, and economic efficiency, and proposes corresponding policy recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To achieve carbon neutrality, it is necessary to grasp the essence of carbon neutrality. This paper looks into a few fundamental issues of carbon neutrality, and provides an in-depth analysis from the perspectives of environmental sustainability, technological innovation, economic viability, energy security, and international cooperation. It is shown that efforts for carbon neutrality need to focus on the key carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuel combustion. Fossil energy is considered to play a role as a short-term "ballast stone", but its attributes decide that it can hardly lead to a sustainable future, and its phasing-out is inevitable. Disruptive zero-carbon energy production and revolutionary technological innovation in its consumption are accelerating that phasing-out process; the zero-carbon-oriented carbon neutrality goal is growing more resilient to market headwinds and releasing momentum for high-quality development. Carbon capture and carbon sinks are indispensable, but they are unable to provide a satisfactory path to carbon neutrality. Carbon neutrality requires substantial capital investment, which can be provided by zero-carbon products with ever-increasing market competitiveness. Investment in high carbon fossil fuel industry can be risky. High carbon lock-in not only increases the difficulty of carbon neutrality, but also intensifies the risk of energy security, and it is difficult to avoid the risk of market crowding-out, resulting in huge amounts of capital waste. Consequently, decarbonization is the trend of the times, giving an edge on seeking international justice and a louder voice in the international community, and also the focus of market competitiveness. However, the target year for carbon neutrality in China is before 2060, indicating that carbon neutrality is not a short-term goal. Therefore, it is impossible and unnecessary to have it realized overnight. The opportunity of carbon neutrality should be well taken for quality growth of the economy and enhancement of people's well-being. Carbon neutrality is a long-term process which calls for thorough plans and step-by-step actions. It is also evident that along with energy revolution, carbon neutrality also brings revolutionary transformation of relations of production and development paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The price of carbon emission rights in the market fluctuates greatly due to various factors from economy, finance, and climate. For an enterprise that needs to conduct carbon trading activities, it is extremely necessary to fully grasp the price of carbon trading in the future period. Thus in this paper, a deep neural network-based assistive decision model for financial risk prediction in carbon trading market is proposed for this purpose. Specifically, the dynamic risk spillover effects of domestic and international carbon trading markets are studied, and a frontier time-varying model is utilized to measure the risk spillover effects. Then, the deep neural network is used for quantitative research and to construct an intelligent decision scheme that outputs financial risk prediction results. Four perspectives, energy price, climate environment, carbon market price, and macroeconomics, are selected as the input to analyze the influence factors of carbon emission rights price. Finally, several linear regression models are adopted as the baseline methods for comparison, and experimental results show that the proposed method can achieve better prediction performance compared with baseline methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's declaration to the international community to peak CO2 emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060 is of great significance in advancing the objectives of the Paris Agreement, and has a positive and far-reaching impact on China's high-quality development. This paper expounds on responsibilities and ambitions in tackling climate change, analyzes the high-quality development opportunities brought about by CO2 emissions peak and carbon neutrality, and discusses the net zero carbon emissions transformation in the new era of ecological civilization. This paper is of the view that development towards net zero carbon emissions provides a new impetus for building a Beautiful China, and promoting ecological civilization and green development. The essence of carbon neutrality should be correctly understood so that the world will work together to improve climate resilience. China should also deepen the understanding of the principles and methodologies of climate change economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The greenhouse gas emissions from China's transport sector, which account for a large proportion of China's total greenhouse gas emissions, are still increasing rapidly. Therefore, low-carbon transformation is urgently needed in China's transport sector. This paper provides an overview of the situation and features of greenhouse gas emissions from China's transport sector, and proposes carbon-neutral development paths for the transport sector based on current national policies, goals and previous research. China needs to work on many aspects, including transport restructuring, alternative fuel technologies and energy efficiency improvement, to achieve near-zero emission goals by 2060. Under the carbon neutrality goal, China's transport sector should strive to reach the carbon peaking goal by 2030, and limit carbon emissions within 100 million tons by 2060. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coal-based energy industry plays a huge role in supporting the development of a national economy. As China pledges to achieve carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals, how to keep a balance between carbon emission reduction and coal consumption has become a serious problem and daunting challenge facing the industrial chain of coal-based energy for a long time. The prospects for the coal mining industry are increasingly limited under carbon constraints. Faced with serious challenges in its positioning and technological development, the coal-fired power industry is suffering the consequences of negative environmental externalities. Therefore, the low-carbon transformation of China's coal-based energy industry is necessary and urgent. This paper conducts an in-depth analysis of the development status of China's coal-based energy industry under the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals and the obstacles in the transformation and upgrade of the coal-based energy industry, and comes up with response strategies. The future coal-based energy industry should make full use of emerging low-carbon clean technologies such as carbon capture, utilization, and storage to achieve low-carbon transformation, and upgrade of the entire industrial chain, following the current development trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since September 22, 2020, President Xi Jinping, who is also the general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, has reiterated China's carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals on many major international occasions and at many important conferences of the CPC Central Committee. The transition to carbon neutrality is becoming a systemic revolution concerning whether China's high-quality economic and social development and sustainable prosperity can be achieved. Incorporating carbon peaking and carbon neutrality well into overall economic and social development framework and ecological civilization construction, setting out the timetable, clarifying the roadmap, and proposing specific action plans have become a global concern. Through the analysis of international situations and China's national strategies, and the application of Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium (IAMC), this paper explores China's pathways to carbon peaking and neutrality, and puts forward recommendations for high-quality development featuring low emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gas-rich nation, Qatar, became the first Middle Eastern country to host the FIFA World Cup in 2022, after beating South Korea, Japan, Australia, and the US. Qatar invested an enormous amount of money in implementing the measures outlined by FIFA and United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the World Cup was included in Qatar's sustainable Vision 2030. Qatar has gained international support and wants to host more mega-events despite controversies surrounding its FIFA World Cup, including workers' deaths during infrastructure construction and protests from western athletes, politicians, and media against the Qatari government and FIFA's ban on LGBT+ symbols and alcohol in the stadium. Qatar's 2022 FIFA World Cup left a sustainable legacy by following ESG principles. This paper analysed how FIFA 2022 applies SDGs, ESG, and Islamic principles and their managerial implications. We concluded with lessons to be learnt from FIFA 2022 and Qatar's investments in green infrastructure, sustainable mobility, and carbon offsetting, as well as how the country's efforts to leave a sustainable legacy after the event could inspire other nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers a two-echelon supply chain consisting of one government, one manufacturer and one retailer in the presence of government green subsidies and carbon cap-and-trade policies. The manufacturer adopts eco-friendly technologies to produce green products for curbing carbon emissions, and the retailer is responsible for selling green products to consumers who exhibit low-carbon preferences. Two noncooperative game models, that is, the manufacturer-led Stackelberg model and the vertical Nash model, are developed under static and dynamic settings, respectively. The static analytical solutions of the models are derived by using game theory, and their complex dynamical behaviors are explored via bifurcation and chaos theory. The results indicate that the excessively large adjustment parameters of the players will destabilize the stability of the Nash equilibrium point, leading to more complicated behaviors such as bifurcation and chaos. The higher consumers' low-carbon preference has a destabilization effect on the system's stability while the carbon trading price may be a stabilizing or a destabilizing factor for the system under different scenarios. Besides, the influence of the government's green subsidy rate on the system's stability is not obvious in most cases. Furthermore, when the system enters into periodic cycles and chaotic motions resulting from the overly fast adjustment speeds, the channel members' performance may be elevating or declining in different models. Therefore, the chaos in the low-carbon supply system is not always detrimental to the channel members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is one of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and has been actively promoting the multilateral global climate governance process. China has advanced its eco-civilization construction and the agenda for combating climate change in a coordinated manner, and delivered positive results. By studying and interpreting the guiding principles of President Xi Jinping's important speeches at the Leaders Summit on Climate and the video summit between China, France and Germany, this paper goes over the basic thinking of China's participation in international climate governance and the Chinese approach to tackling global climate change, and sums up China's achievements in the fields such as transition to green and low-carbon development, energy structure adjustment, greenhouse gases control, the construction of national carbon market, as well as its contribution to tackling global climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Achieving carbon neutrality requires the fundamental transformation of the development paradigm, the disruptive technologies. With efficiency-improving technologies and carbon removal technologies alone, it is possible to move further towards low carbon but hard to achieve carbon neutrality. It can only be realized through thorough decoupling from fossil energy with disruptive technologies. This revolution aiming at carbon neutrality has not only made new ground in the energy market, but also the central task which is to revolutionize zero-carbon energy production and consumption through underlying changes to the relations of production and mode of distribution, thereby pushing forward the fundamental transformation of social development paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon emissions trading is a major innovation in the practice of using market mechanism to control and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and promote green and low-carbon development. It is an important way to achieve China's carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals (the "dual carbon" goals) at a relatively low cost. Starting late and having gone through three development stages, China's national carbon market has entered a new stage. However, given the problems such as incomplete institutional, regulatory and carbon emissions verification systems, less balanced and vibrant market, limited transaction entities and trading products, and lack of voice due to insufficient participation in relevant international affairs, continuous efforts are still required to further improve this market by deepening reform, strengthening capacity building and increasing international cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Achieving carbon peaking and carbon neutrality in the building sector is an important component of China's "dual carbon" goals. In recent years, the country's direct carbon emissions in the building sector have hit a plateau while the total emissions still grow rapidly. Besides, the building materials for construction and refrigerants leaked during buildings' operation also result in greenhouse gas emissions. To achieve the targets set for future low-carbon development, the building sector should feature "sufficient demand, decarbonized structure and flexible load." According to the analysis of the emission reduction approaches adopted by different sectors, China's building sector should make a ceaseless effort to promote building energy conservation, improve electrification, and load flexibility, reform the energy system in rural areas, optimize the heating structure in northern China's urban areas, as well as reduce the emissions during construction and the non-CO2 gas emissions. In the 14th Five-Year period, it is suggested to clarify the total energy consumption and carbon emission targets, adjust the energy structure more vigorously, and draw up more measures to reduce the emissions related to construction and refrigerant leakage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]