China's green deal: Can China's cement industry achieve carbon neutral emissions by 2060?

Abstract

The cement industry emits 8% of global CO2 emissions. Representing over 50% of these emissions, China's Cement Industry (CCI) will play a key role towards achieving CO2 emission peak and Carbon neutrality. This study designed a bottom-up Green Transition Roadmap model to assess the feasibility of China's newly proposed goal – achieve Carbon neutrality by 2060. Six emission abatement measures are explored under three scenarios based on green transition policies. Random sampling of uncertainty factors is also performed to investigate their effects on decarbonization roadmaps. Finally, GAINS model and abatement cost curves are used to monetize decarbonization co-benefits. Results show that: (1) Achieving Carbon neutrality in CCI by 2060 is ambitious but possible under advanced and aggressive abatement scenarios, with a net cumulative cost of 279–345 billion CNY after deducing monetized co-benefits; (2) Uncertainties significantly upset decarbonization roadmapsas it takes an additional 4–6 years to achieve the same emission reductions compared to deterministic scenarios; (3) Circular economy should be prioritized in the roadmap since it is least costly and contributes 33.6% of CO2 emission abatement; (4) From 52-technologies assessed, 10-technologies account for 75% of abatement potential brought by advanced efficiency technology measure. Most are calcination process technologies, reflecting the urgency to target this emission intensive process; (5) Realizing Carbon neutrality brings huge co-benefits in energy saving and pollutant reduction. Specifically, fossil energy, PM, NOx and SO2 intensities drop by 65%, 48%, 64% and 92% in 2060 respectively. Therefore, policy-makers can resort to deep decarbonization to reach stringent air pollution standards.