Experiences and lessons for China's energy transition: From the firewood era to the low carbon era.

China is currently facing a critical challenge in completing its second radical energy transition from fossil to zero-carbon energy amidst the impacts of climate change and the international landscape. In order to clarify the concept of energy transition and the challenges facing China's energy transition, this paper adopts a research framework with Multi-Level Perspective to sort out China's energy history. Drawing on China's energy transition experience, this paper derives four key conclusions. Firstly, the energy transition is a comprehensive transformation of the energy system, which is influenced by the macro landscape, socio-technical regime and innovation niche. Secondly, based on the intensity of the transition, the historical energy transitions can be divided into two categories: incremental energy transitions and radical energy transitions. Thirdly, China's past energy transitions are mainly incremental energy transitions. Influenced by the macro environment and socio-technical regime, the transition process is mostly iterative and tortuous. Fourthly, China's energy transition is facing significant challenges in the current stage, with a tight schedule and heavy tasks, and a lack of basic scientific and technological theories and niche innovations. Building on these findings, specific recommendations to policy makers are provided. • The energy transition is a comprehensive transformation of the energy system. • China's past energy transitions are mainly incremental energy transitions. • China's energy transition faces great difficulties at this stage. • China must champion robust institutional reforms and expedite niche innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]