How to achieve the dual-control targets of China's CO2 emission reduction in 2030? Future trends and prospective decomposition

Abstract

Environmental problems are escalating with rapid economic development; the Chinese government actively follows a low-carbon development pattern and has made CO2 emissions reduction commitments for 2030. In the future, how to realize the 2030 CO2 emissions peak target and intensity reduction target has become an urgent problem for China to solve. This study aims to predict China's CO2 emissions trends by 2030 under different scenarios and to calculate the reduction potential of each sector and the impact factors separately. A comprehensive forecasting model was developed in this study based on the Kaya identity, Log-Mean Decomposition Index (LMDI) model and Scenario Analysis methods. According to this model, China's CO2 emissions will grow to 112.89 million tons in 2030 but not reach its peak under the target scenario (TS), while the CO2 emissions intensity will be 0.40 ton per 10,000 RMB, achieving the “Paris Commitment” for CO2 intensity reduction targets. In terms of emissions reduction factors, such as economic growth, energy technology progress and energy structure optimization are the main factors to achieve CO2 reduction targets, with the annual average mitigation potential of 8.83 million tons, 9.41 million tons and 5.80 million tons, respectively. In terms of China's six economic sectors, the 2nd sector(industrial sector) will have the largest reduction potential during 2016–2030, with an average annual reduction of 23.24 million tons, while the reduction from energy technology advancements contributes the most, followed by economic growth and energy structure optimization, with the annual average reduction rate of 44.35%, 30.92% and 19.64%, respectively. The key pathways for reducing China's CO2 emissions in the future are to adjust the economic development model in the 2nd, 4th, and 6th sectors, to improve the energy efficiency of the 2nd sector, and to optimize the energy consumption structure of the 1st, 2nd, and 6th sectors. Finally, we suggest that China should construct mutually compatible mitigation policies networks and focus on the superposition effect of various subsystem policy objectives to realize the "Paris commitment" for China's 2030 CO2 mitigation targets.