Transition pathway for China to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060

Abstract

Faced with the pressure of global warming, China has pledged to peak its CO2 emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. Realizing the carbon-neutral transition of the energy system under the contradiction between economic growth and CO2 emission reduction is an urgent and realistic problem. This study proposes a methodology for constructing a carbon-neutral energy system that considers renewable energy, energy conservation, and electrification potential in the energy sector and emissions from industrial processes. Based on the proposed methodology, this study takes China’s energy system as an example and formulates a business-as-usual pathway, three low-carbon transition pathways according to the 2°C warming goal, 1.5°C warming goal, and the carbon-neutral goal to explore the feasibility of achieving carbon neutrality by 2060 and the corresponding technical support and cost requirements. In terms of energy supply and technological applications, China’s energy system can realize all the emission-reduction goals by 2060 or even earlier with renewable energy sources and energy conservations pushed to the maximum constraints. The results show that the low-carbon transition can help improve the economy of the future energy system. Compared with the business-as-usual pathway, the 2°C and 1.5°C pathways can reduce the energy system costs by 19.2% and 21.1%, respectively, in 2060. Despite the large-scale introduction of renewable and carbon capture technologies in the carbon-neutral pathway, its cost is only 86.4% of the business-as-usual pathway. In addition, this study discusses several key issues, including biomass use, cross-sectoral technologies, and carbon capture technology deployment. To sum up, the carbon-neutral energy system construction methodology proposed in this paper can be applied in any region to build low-carbon transition pathways for the local energy system and provide reliable and effective support to achieve the emission-reduction targets.