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This paper deeply analyzes the current situation and problems of geothermal resources exploration, development and utilization in Shanghai, and discusses the development strategy of sustainable development and utilization of geothermal resources in Shanghai combined with the “dual carbon” goal, opportunities and challenges. The key tasks for the development and utilization of geothermal resources in Shanghai during the “15th Five-Year Plan” period are put forward, namely, deepening the exploration and monitoring of geothermal resources, strengthening key technologies, constructing the standard system of the whole process, establishing the intelligent management system, discipline construction and personnel training. It is suggested that the future work can focus on strengthening the guidance of supporting policies, improving the leading function of the government, increasing investment in key technologies, promoting representative application demonstration, and so on, to promote the transformation of the city to green and low-carbon development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the analogy where achieving the "carbon peaking and carbon neutrality" goals (the "dual carbon" goals) is compared to a battle, energy is the main battlefield, and electric power the main force. The low-carbon transformation path of the electric power industry exerts fundamental impact on progress towards carbon peaking and carbon neutrality of the whole society. Therefore, this paper first analyzes challenges and opportunities faced by the electric power industry to achieve the "dual carbon" goals; secondly, on the basis of deep low-carbon, zero-carbon and negative-carbon scenarios of the electric power industry, this paper quantifies and delves into the consumption structure of primary energy and final energy, as well as the future development positioning and trend of different categories of energy. Based on the research results, this paper proposes low-carbon transformation path of the electric power system at the stages of carbon peaking, deep low-carbon and carbon neutrality, and analyzes the trend of power supply cost changes in different scenarios. On this basis, a series of implementation key points and measures are proposed to adapt to green and low-carbon transformation of the electric power industry, covering areas such as coal-fired electric power development positioning, new energy development and utilization, diversified supply and demand, new energy industry chain, and power supply costs, and so forth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The iron and steel industry is the largest carbon emitter in China's manufacturing sector and one of the most important fields in the country's response to climate change. This paper aims to explain the current situation, technological pathways, and future direction of green and low-carbon development of the iron and steel industry. According to the carbon emissions of the iron and steel industry, this paper analyzes the relationship between steelmaking technologies and carbon emissions, as well as the transformation trend of the world's iron and steel industry, finding that China's iron and steel industry faces both opportunities and challenges. Steel scrap recycling and electric furnace steelmaking technologies, re-electrification, hydrogen metallurgy, resource recycling and by-products, and carbon capture and utilization (CCU) are the main technologies tailored to the transformation pathways, and the optimization of energy consumption structure is an important direction for future development. Therefore, this paper believes that clean energy, as a guarantee for carbon mitigation, will play an increasingly important role in the process towards achieving carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals (the "dual carbon" goals), in addition to the transformation of metallurgical technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals were proposed, different institutions and scholars carried out research on China's medium- and long-term mitigation pathways. Through the literature review of China's research on carbon neutrality, this paper finds that the zero-carbon energy transition is the key to achieving carbon neutrality. The main driving factors of reducing energy-related carbon emissions include the cleanliness of primary and secondary energy supply systems, the electrification of energy consumption and the development of hydrogen energy, energy efficiency improvement, carbon capture and storage (CCS), and negative emissions. Furthermore, based on the literature, this paper conducts a quantitative comparative analysis, and selects key indicators for comparative analysis and summary from seven dimensions, including economic and social development, carbon emission pathways, primary energy consumption, final energy consumption, final hydrogen energy consumption, electricity demand and supply, and installed capacity and structure of power generation. Main conclusions are as follows: (i) In terms of carbon emission pathways, the institutions generally believed that China will peak carbon emissions around 2028 and achieve carbon neutrality between 2050 and 2060. Achieving net-zero or near-zero emissions first in the power sector is the key to carbon neutrality across the society; (ii) In terms of energy supply, it is a consensus to increase the proportion of clean energy and reduce carbon emissions from the source. The proportion of clean energy in primary energy will increase to more than 85%, and the proportion of clean energy power generation and installed capacity will reach more than 90%; (iii) In terms of energy use, electricity will become the core of final energy consumption in the future. The predicted electricity consumption across the society will range 14.3–18.4 PWh, and the predicted electrification rate will exceed 65%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the current situation of carbon emissions in the industrial field and the problems it faces, the implementation path of China, s industrial field under the vision of "Dual Carbon", and proposes a concrete and feasible implementation path for ChinaJ s industrial field to achieve peak carbon and carbon neutrality. It is proposed that strengthening government guidance and system construction, accelerating energy structure optimization and energy efficiency, technological innovation, promoting coupling development among different industries and improving the carbon market system, and strengthening international cooperation are important to promote the promotion of the dual carbon strategy in the industrial field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the influence of the dual policies of sustainable economic development and the national dual-carbon target, the establishment of an environmental protection department for the treatment of heavily polluting industries is imminent, and the country has launched pollution control policies and regulations to restrict the emission rights of heavily polluting industries. Therefore, this paper focuses on whether the restriction of emission rights in key industries has reduced carbon emissions. To achieve this, this paper uses panel data of prefecture-level cities in China from 2006 to 2019 and adopts a two-way fixed-effects DID model to systematically analyze the impact of the key pollution industry governance policies launched by the Ministry of Environmental Protection on CO2 emissions in 2017. And further analyze the role of variables such as green technology innovation patents and energy efficiency using this model, while parallel trend tests and placebo tests, and related policies are used to ensure the robustness of the regression results. This paper reveals that: (1) The heavy pollution industry governance policy implemented in 2017 can effectively reduce CO2 emissions in the cities of the treated group, and the effect is more significant in the year of policy implementation; (2) Green utility patents and energy-use efficiency are the effective mediating mechanisms to reduce CO2 emissions; (3) Over time, the effect of heavy pollution industry governance policy on CO2 emissions gradually decreases; (4) The reliability of the baseline regression results of this paper is proved by the use of parallel trend tests, placebo tests, and tests excluding the influence factors such as relevant policies in the same period. Therefore, the key polluting industries treatment policy launched by China's Ministry of Environmental Protection in 2017 under the recent dual-carbon policy development goals formulated by China, can effectively reduce carbon emissions; however, in the future economic development process, the government should give more consideration to the continuity of the policy impact and its coherence on economic development when implementing the policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurately identifying the historical causes of carbon emissions in the process of national economic development is an important basis for developing countries to achieve carbon emission reduction. This paper explores the intrinsic institutional causes of China's high CO2 emission growth based on the characteristic economic growth target system of China, and attempts to empirically test the environmental effects behind this system. The results of the study show that the setting of absolute economic growth targets significantly increases the carbon dioxide emissions of cities under horizontal competition, and the setting of relative economic growth targets exacerbates the above carbon emission effect under vertical competition. In addition, the heterogeneity analysis shows that the carbon emission effect of setting economic growth targets is stronger in resource-dependent cities and cities with a lower level of economic development. Mechanism tests show that economic growth targets not only significantly increases total fossil energy consumption and reduces energy efficiency at the firm level, but also leads to the increase of energy consumption and the reduction of energy efficiency at the industry level. The findings of this study provide an intrinsic institutional explanation for China's high carbon emissions and provide useful guidance for the design of mechanisms to achieve large-scale carbon emission reductions in developing countries. • This paper investigates the impact of economic growth targets on carbon emissions. • How economic growth targets setting system affects carbon emissions remains underexplored. • There are significant differences in the impacts of EGT setting regimes on carbon emissions in cities with different types of development. • The economic growth targeting system influences regional carbon emissions through two pathways: energy consumption levels and energy efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Harmonizing the cleanliness and economics of energy is an effective means of integrating economic growth with carbon peaking goals, and realizing sustainable development in China. However, due to the existence of the energy trilemma, a worthwhile research question is how to fulfill the carbon peaking commitment while guaranteeing China's stable national development. Based on this, this paper not only discusses the nonlinear relationship between clean energy consumption transition and economic growth through threshold regression, but also simulates several scenarios of energy transition dynamics with different growth rates by using Oracle Crystal Ball software to forecast the future trend of China's carbon emissions up to 2030, aiming to find a transition scenario that can make the peak of carbon emissions appear without significant economic burden, so as to put forward countermeasures and suggestions to avoid falling into the energy trilemma in the process of fulfilling the commitment of carbon peaking. This paper finds that: firstly, there is an inverted U-shaped non-linear relationship between clean energy consumption transition and economic growth, with the inflection point of the inverted U-shape being 0.595; and secondly, only when energy transition exceeds 0.535 in 2030, the peak of carbon emissions (about 12,922.28 Mt) will occur. In summary, this paper argues that China should steadily advance energy transition, avoiding either too fast or too slow a pace (bring clean energy consumption transition to within the 0.535–0.595 range by 2030), in order to secure economic growth while honoring its commitment to peak carbon. Therefore, China should prudently design a coal exit strategy to avoid falling into the energy trilemma when promoting energy transition. Moreover, if China wants to further fulfill its commitment to carbon neutrality by 2060, it needs to continue to deepen the construction of green financial markets in order to better balance the relationship between energy cleanliness and economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Now, China has made it clear that it will strive to have CO2 emissions peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060 (the "dual carbon" goals), based on the logic that carbon peaking is a prerequisite for carbon neutrality. The year 2021 is the first year of China's 14th Five-Year Plan period. As the main battlefields to achieve the "dual carbon" goals, cities are also required to build on their pathways towards such goals under new conditions. Based on the progress China has made with pilot cities for low-carbon development and the discussion on 60 cities by category, this paper identifies the commonalities and differences between Chinese cities' pathways towards carbon peaking, and concludes that Chinese cities need to peak their carbon emissions in an organized and step-wise way on the basis of classification and according to their own development level and emission characteristics. In light of the above conclusion, this paper provides feasible suggestions for Chinese cities' carbon peaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper summarizes the new progress in building China's national carbon market since 2020, and analyzes the connotation of China's carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals ("dual carbon" goals) and its significance to socio-economic development in China. Through case analysis, this paper expounds the role of China's recent carbon trading activities in promoting the transition toward green and low-carbon socio-economic development. On that basis, this paper conceives a top-level design for building the national carbon market that serves the "dual carbon" goals: building and improving the national carbon market that fundamentally serves as an emission reduction tool, developing the institutions and systems of the national carbon market with a focus on emission cap, creating a multilevel and diversified carbon trading scheme centered on the national carbon market, exploring a mechanism that takes carbon emission reduction as the core and promotes the synergistic effect of the carbon market with other environmental rights trading markets, and pursuing the healthy and orderly development of carbon finance that aims to serve carbon emission reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Power industry is the largest carbon emission sector in China. Therefore, this industry will play an important role in achieving the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals ("dual carbon" goals) for the whole society. For this purpose, it is critical to balance four relationships, i.e. relationship between carbon mitigation and energy security, carbon peaking in the short term and carbon neutrality in the long term, the coordinated carbon mitigation in power industry and other industries, and technical feasibility and economic efficiency. This paper proposes the China's Energy Interconnection scenario to promote carbon peaking and carbon neutrality of the society, which can be divided into three stages, i.e. peaking carbon emissions before 2030, rapid emission reduction during 2030–2050, and comprehensive carbon neutrality before 2060. It is expected that the power system will achieve zero emissions before other industries and contribute negative emissions afterwards, providing emission space for carbon neutrality in other industries across the society. Looking into the future, China's electricity demand will continue to grow. Clean energy will become the main power source, the use of coal-fired power will be gradually reduced, and gas-fired power will undertake the function of peak-load regulation. Faster progress will be made in forming an overall grid pattern with ultra-high voltage (UHV) grid as the backbone and featuring "west-to-east and north-to-south power transmission, a balanced energy mix, and transnational power interconnection." Finally, this paper discusses a new-type of power system characterized by a high proportion of electricity generated from clean energy, high ratio of electric and electronic equipment, and a high proportion of power transmission and reception, together with summer and winter high load periods, and points out the challenges faced by the new-type power system with a high proportion of renewable energy sources in terms of flexibility, safety, and economic efficiency, and proposes corresponding policy recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural gas is a low-carbon and clean energy, and the demand is growing under the background of achieving carbon peaking and carbon neutralization in China. Natural gas purification is an important part of the development of conventional gas fields. The optimal operation of natural gas purification device, energy conservation and emission reduction, and green energy business expansion are of great significance for promoting natural gas production and green and low-carbon development of the industry. Taking the natural gas purification plants of PetroChina Southwest Oil & Gas field Company, which is the earliest in China, the largest in scale, advanced in process technology, fully equipped and highly automated, as an example, the operating status of the existing units and the challenges facing the difficult control of product gas quality indicators and rising operating costs were analyzed. In combination with the goals of carbon peaking and carbon neutralization, this paper gives the specific directions and suggestions on how to increase processing capacity, improve emerging technologies, continue energy conservation and emission reduction, innovate control systems and carry out carbon capture, utilization and storage and green energy business expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since September 22, 2020, President Xi Jinping, who is also the general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, has reiterated China's carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals on many major international occasions and at many important conferences of the CPC Central Committee. The transition to carbon neutrality is becoming a systemic revolution concerning whether China's high-quality economic and social development and sustainable prosperity can be achieved. Incorporating carbon peaking and carbon neutrality well into overall economic and social development framework and ecological civilization construction, setting out the timetable, clarifying the roadmap, and proposing specific action plans have become a global concern. Through the analysis of international situations and China's national strategies, and the application of Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium (IAMC), this paper explores China's pathways to carbon peaking and neutrality, and puts forward recommendations for high-quality development featuring low emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy quota trading is critical to both energy conservation and the achievement of dual-carbon goals. However, little remains to be done on total factor productivity and economic potential for Chinese industry. The purpose of this paper is to counterfactually model and explore the effects of energy quota trading on total factor productivity and economic potential in industrial sector. We propose a command-controlled DEA model and an energy quota trading DEA model through non-parametric linear programming based on two policy strategies of energy consumption control. We then assess total factor productivity and its growth sources for 35 two-digit industrial sector in China, as well as examine economic potential and optimal path forecasts for carbon peaking. The results show that total factor productivity and economic potential for energy quota trading are higher than those for command-controlled energy policy. Energy-saving effect can be achieved for energy quota trading because the total energy input is lower. Additionally, the sources of productivity growth differ in timing. The average economic potential and total factor productivity of different industries differ due to the heterogeneity of the production conditions and scale of development of individual market players. Moreover, the catch-up emission reduction path with an increase of 8% in output and 4.76% in energy consumption is the optimal carbon peaking path under energy quota trading. Our findings shed valuable light on China's efforts to expand energy quota trading for high-quality development in the context of carbon peaking. • Propose a command-controlled DEA model and an energy quota trading DEA model. • Assess TFP and its growth sources for industrial sector in China. • Compare the impact of different energy policies on economic potential and TFP. • Estimate the energy saving and emission reduction potential of energy quota trading. • Examine the optimal energy-saving and emission-reduction path forecasts for carbon peaking.. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's 'dual carbon' strategy is of strategic importance in leading global climate governance and promoting China's high-quality and green economic development. Cities are the centres of human activities. However, these are also places where high energy consumption and high carbon emissions are concentrated. This study selected data from 192 small and medium-sized cities in mainland China for the period 2000–2020. It classified these into seven categories using the K-means clustering method, calculated the decoupling status of different types of small and medium-sized cities based on the Tapio decoupling index, and analysed the relationship between carbon emissions and economic growth in various types of small and medium-sized cities based on the EKC curve theory. Finally, the backpropagation neural network (BPNN) model was used to classify and predict the time required to achieve carbon peaking for seven types of small and medium-sized cities. The following conclusions were drawn: (1) The development status of small and medium-sized cities shows a 'geese echelon pattern'. New dynamic small and medium-sized urban areas may reach peak carbon emissions first, while resource-based small and medium-sized urban areas may be the last to do so. (2) The decoupling of carbon emissions from industrial development in small and medium-sized cities has not been completed. This manifests mainly through the states of declining decoupling, absolute decoupling, and strong negative decoupling. (3) A significant inverted U-shaped relationship exists between economic development and carbon emissions in these cities. (4) These cities may have the disadvantage of premature or excessive de-industrialisation. Additionally, these generally have an inefficient and expansionary economic development status. Therefore, this study contended for a more robust integration of a radical political economy and ecological economics to support the development of such cities in China. The paper proposes differentiated development paths and fundamental recommendations for small and medium-sized cities in the implementation of the 'double carbon' strategy. The intention is to provide theoretical guidance and implications for promoting green and low-carbon development in urban and rural areas and for the early achievement of the strategy in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How to achieve the "double carbon" goal in energy systems has been the concern of governments. Integrated energy system (IES) is affected by climate change during his operation, in order to study the impact of climate change on IES and achieve the "double carbon" goal in energy systems, this paper proposes an integrated machine learning(IML) to forecast the long-term load, then investigates IES costs and carbon emissions in relation to climate, followed by the establishment of carbon peak energy system(CPES) and carbon neutral energy system(CNES), finally the honey badger algorithm is used to optimize the configuration of CPES and CNES. The results show that: IML can accurately make load forecasts. Under climate change, changes in load reduce the cost and carbon emissions of IES, and changes in equipment efficiency increase the cost and carbon emissions of IES. When both are considered, the cost and carbon emissions of IES increase by 1.18% and 0.92% per decade respectively. The costs of CPES and CNES increase by 0.93% and 1% respectively for every 10 years earlier than the year of achievement. To meet China's "double carbon" goal, CPES and CNES need to increase their costs by 1.97% and 2% respectively. • Integrated machine learning proposed for long-term load forecasting. • Studied the impact of system equipment efficiency and load with climate change. • Proposing carbon peaking energy system to achieve the carbon peak goal. • Proposed carbon-neutral energy system to achieve carbon neutrality goal. • The increased costs of achieving carbon peak and carbon neutral were studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei metropolitan area is a significant carbon emission center. The region's early achievement of peak carbon targets is critical to the nation's achievement of peak carbon targets. In this paper, it is proposed to use different orders of grey models to classify into three scenarios. Based on three scenarios, the grey multivariate convolutional model with new information priority accumulation is adopted to predict carbon emissions in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and select the scenario suitable for local development. The results show that: (1) The Beijing region has already achieved peak carbon, the Tianjin region may not reach its peak carbon target by 2030, and the Hebei region is expected to reach its peak carbon target by 2030. (2) The high rate of carbon emission reduction scenario will greatly improve the air quality of Beijing. The low-speed growth carbon emission scenario is more in line with the future development of Tianjin city. The low-rate carbon reduction scenario is more in line with the synergistic governance of pollution reduction and carbon reduction in Hebei Province. (3) Beijing's population policy in the most recent years has been conducive to improving the local environment. Tianjin's medium-term population policy is more in line with the local area. Hebei's medium-term industrial structure reform is favorable to local development. • Grey correlation analysis is used to analyze the factors affected carbon emissions in a region. • The factors with high correlation are predicted by using grey prediction models of different orders. • The high rate of carbon emission reduction scenario will greatly improve the air quality of Beijing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To support high-quality carbon peaking, a scenario analysis of carbon peaking pathways according to an industrial chain perspective considering both material and part production needs exploring. As a critical segment in the aluminum industrial chain, aluminum casting industry was focused on in this paper. A bottom-up scenario analysis approach was proposed for the carbon emission simulation of China's aluminum casting industry, including: (1) a carbon emission assessment model based on material flow analysis and life-cycle assessment, (2) key influence factor selection and variation scenario prediction, (3) static and dynamic scenario analysis, and (4) driving factor decomposition analysis. Key findings are as follows: (1) China's aluminum casting industry accounted for about 1.1% of the national carbon emissions in 2020; (2) the production stage accounted for around 15% of the total carbon emissions of China's aluminum casting industry in 2020; (3) carbon peaking probabilities before 2030 for the static and dynamic scenario analysis are around 60% and 35%, respectively; and (4) the carbon peaking result differences in whether considering the production stage are about 20% for the static simulation and average 40% for the dynamic simulation. These findings effectively support the formulation of a high-quality carbon peaking pathway. • A bottom-up approach of scenario analysis was proposed for carbon peaking pathways. • Carbon emission assessment model was built with corresponding inventory data. • Static and dynamic scenario analyses of carbon emissions were compared. • Decomposition and sensitivity analysis of driving factors were conducted. • Production stage accounted for around 15% of the total carbon emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy finance is an important market instrument for carbon peaking, which may influence the energy vulnerability. This paper explores the impact of two energy finance policies combined with renewable energy subsidy (RES) on energy vulnerability under different carbon peaking scenarios. To this end, the total fossil energy and renewable energy consumption under different carbon peaking scenarios are calculated using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. Then, the sector-level energy use rights are allocated through the game equity fixed cost allocation model which considers equity, game and efficiency principles. Combining the consumption thresholds of renewable energy, the impacts of energy finance policies on energy vulnerability under different carbon peaking scenarios are investigated using an energy finance CGE model. The main results are as follows. (1) In the long run, the earlier the peaking time, the lower the energy vulnerability. (2) Under each peaking scenario, no energy finance policy implemented can minimize energy vulnerability before carbon peaking. After the peaking year, the implementation of energy finance policies can reduce energy vulnerability more significantly. (3) Among the three types of policy coupling , energy finance policies combined with RES can minimize national energy vulnerability and buffer the impact of energy finance policies on GDP. [Display omitted] • The earlier the peaking time, the lower the energy vulnerability composite index. • Energy finance helps reduce more energy vulnerability under earlier carbon peaking. • Base scenario would minimize energy vulnerability before carbon peaking. • RES embedded in energy finance can minimize national energy vulnerability. • Combining RES with energy finance buffers the negative impact on GDP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to deal with the increasing environmental challenges, the high carbon-emitting transport system keeps transitioning to achieve carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals. This paper addresses the calculation of carbon emission estimation and identifying carbon reduction driving factors for the hinterland-based container intermodal network. Firstly, an analysis of the carbon emissions composition of the hinterland-based container intermodal networks is conducted. Furthermore, a carbon emission estimation model for the hinterland-based container intermodal network is developed. Subsequently, taking the Shanghai port and the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) hinterland as a case, we estimate the carbon emission of the hinterland-based container intermodal network under the Well-to-Wheel (WTW) and the Tank-to-Wheel (TTW) modes in the past ten years. Finally, the critical driving factors are identified by sensitivity analysis, and the variation of carbon emissions under different scenarios with carbon reduction policies are analyzed. The results indicate that the transportation structure and the fuel choices affect network emissions reductions significantly. In the current policy-based scenario, the WTW mode achieves the carbon peaking between 2030 and 2035, while the TTW mode peaks earlier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]