Research on the prospects of low-carbon economic development in China based on LEAP model

Abstract

Abstract Scenarios prediction provides an important reference for the Chinese government to develop low-carbon economy. Four critical factors, the per capita GDP, energy consumption, energy structure, and CO2 emissions,are mainly considered as the indicators to measure the level of low-carbon economic development. Meanwhile, based on LEAP model,the base scenario, low-carbon scenario,and frustrated low-carbon scenario are formulated to simulate China's low-carbon economic development level in 2050. The results show that the total terminal energy demands in the three kinds of scenarios are respectively 6.095 billion tons of standard coal, 5.236 billion tons of standard coal, and 6.239 billion tons of standard coal in 2050. The study indicates that China has achieved a considerable decrease in its CO 2 emissions mainly due to improved energy intensity.In addition, fuel switching and renewable energy penetration also exhibit positive effect to the CO2 decrease.It is a more effective guarantee for achieving the goal of low-carbon economy to adjust the industrial structure, fully develop clean coal and coal technology, and improve energy efficiency.