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Carbon neutrality strategies have a significant role in climate mitigation efforts. As global concerns regarding climate change continue to increase, achieving carbon neutrality has emerged as a paramount objective for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and limiting the adverse impacts of anthropogenic activities on the environment. This research investigates a wide range of scholarly works to conduct an in-depth analysis and synthesis of the relevant information about carbon neutrality strategies. The review introduces carbon neutrality principles and terminologies, highlighting their importance in climate mitigation. It then proceeds to explore the wide range of strategies employed across different sectors and industries, investigating their effectiveness, scalability, and potential challenges. A multidimensional analysis contrasts the United States Nationally Determined Contributions pathway 2023, China's Nationally Determined contributions 2023, and the EU Directive 2023/2413, assessing their economic, environmental, political, and social impacts. The study evaluates strategies' effectiveness, scalability, and innovation for transitioning to a sustainable, low-carbon future. It fills a gap by analyzing global approaches across the US, China, and the EU, which account for about 50% of the world's total GHG emissions. It evaluates the novel application of diverse strategies, from renewable energy transitions to innovative policy measures, highlighting their potential to mitigate climate change effectively. By providing a multidimensional analysis of these strategies' impacts, the research not only enhances understanding of effective carbon neutrality tactics but also underscores the importance of international cooperation in realizing a sustainable, low-carbon future. • Identifies and analyzes carbon neutrality strategies, emphasizing the need for diverse US, Chinese, and EU approaches. • Evaluate renewable energy, carbon capture, and policy tools for carbon reduction effectiveness, scalability, and innovation. • Highlights the study's novelty in synthesizing current knowledge on carbon neutrality, addressing a significant research gap. • Concludes with strategic ideas for international collaboration and policy development for low-carbon futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable socio-economic development requires a global reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. We utilize an incentivized experiment to map the preferences of 'policymakers' over climate actions of 'decision-makers'. Our design guarantees that these preferences are unaffected by selfish motives such as a concern about being re-elected or an unwillingness to pay for the greater good. Few of our impartial policymakers choose interventions that leave the autonomy of decision-makers' completely untouched. The choice patterns of those who intervene suggest that policymakers care not only about minimizing emissions, but also about how emissions are reduced. Policymakers strongly prefer pricing policies over capping emissions, and among the pricing policies, they prefer those that include voluntary carbon offsets, even if this leaves considerable scope for decision-makers to selfishly emit CO 2. The reason is that policymakers expect decision-makers to voluntarily offset some of their emissions at their own cost, and believe that this would eventually improve the outcome in terms of both emissions and the decision-makers' profit relative to a standard carbon pricing policy (without offsetting). Our decision-making data confirm this expectation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese government has announced ambitious carbon reduction goals to address climate change, however, there has been limited scientific attention to the achievement of deep decarbonization in regions with insufficient economic development. Moreover, the complex impacts of climate change mitigation on energy system, environment and economic development remain unclear in Northwest China. Here we construct a comprehensive evaluation model system to evaluate the effects of different climate mitigation pathways in Qinghai, Ningxia, Gansu and Xinjiang provinces. Results show that the four provinces need to vigorously increase the share of electricity that consumed in final energy to 53.1–60.0% and 52.9–62.0% for 2 °C and 1.5 °C target, respectively, and reduce total energy demand to 11.6–44.4 Mtoe and 8.2–34.1 Mtoe in 2050. Meanwhile, the CO 2 emissions for their energy systems will reach peak by 2025 at lower values. Moreover, the synergies of CO 2 reduction are most conducive to abating SO 2 pollution and also contributing to decreasing PM 2.5 concentrations. Additionally, the GDP losses in 2050 fluctuate from 5.0 to 21.7 billion USD in the 2 °C scenario to 11.5–52.7 billion USD in the 1.5 °C scenario. Our study provides practical guidance on achieving carbon reductions in less developed regions of China and lays foundations to promote decarbonization of energy systems in other provinces. • Realizing climate goals requires low-carbon energy systems led by electricity. • Energy-related carbon emissions in Northwest China will peak by 2025. • More ambitious climate and clean air policies are needed for air quality improvement. • Economic loss shows an upward trend in the future under climate targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) is a crucial technology for global climate mitigation. To implement large-scale CCUS, decisions about where and how to build a CO 2 transportation network are urgently required. However, previous studies are limited in proposing the economical transportation network for CCUS that considered comprehensive risks from socio-economic, geographical and geological factors. Here, we develop a pipeline layout planning model to investigate the cost-effective and reliable transportation network for CCUS. Results show that to meet the annual CO 2 emission reduction target of 654 million tons for CCUS in the coal-fired power sector under China's carbon neutral goal, pipelines with a total length of 17,589 km need to be constructed. The emission sources can be transported in pipelines with an average radius of 58 km, and with diameters of 8, 12, and 16 inches. Northeast, north, and northwest China are the main areas suitable for pipeline construction. • Northeast, North, and Northwest in China are vital areas for capture, transport, and storage. • Five large-scale pipeline network groups can be constructed in China. • Pipeline construction is greatly affected by a variety of practical factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to forecast greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Hong Kong with an optimal selection of predictors. A review is made on the time-series of the GHG emissions by different sources in 1992–2021. Twenty potential predictors are examined relating to economics, social developments, energy use, waste production and climatic conditions, based on previous studies on GHG emissions and mitigation. Three principal components produce well-fitting linear-log regression models. The model stability over time is verified by expanding window analysis. The model accuracy is assured by a CV(RMSE) of 6.1508% in the testing sets. Based on hierarchical clustering and stepwise regression, the gross floor area of construction projects is the most significant predictor to forecast GHG emissions, followed by the unemployment rate and the total expense in construction works. High levels of the three predictors facilitate GHG mitigation, but cannot meet the carbon neutral target. Carbon reduction technologies should be strengthened in growing construction projects. Electricity related carbon mitigation should be further enhanced. The novelty of this study is to provide insights to updating and prioritizing decarbonization strategies in the next phase of Hong Kong's Climate Action Plan. • The peak and downward trend of GHG emissions are examined in Hong Kong. • Principal components produce well-fitting linear-log regression models with social and economic variables. • Significant predictors to forecast GHG emissions are identified from hierarchical clustering and stepwise regression. • Construction is the top priority in GHG mitigation. • Mitigating electricity-related GHG emissions facilitates meeting carbon neutrality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With increased understanding of the impacts of climate change, institutions across the world are committing to achieve carbon neutrality and other emissions reduction targets. Within academia, the American College & University Presidents' Climate Commitment was created as a highly visible public contract with over 300 active signatories. Existing climate action planning tools rely on significant subjectivity and previously conducted project analysis. This work presents an optimization framework that develops a long-term planning tool tailored for use by academic institutions. Further, we highlight the potential for ecological solutions and land management as economically competitive actions for campuses. The presented tool, known as DCARB (Designing Climate Action and Regulations for sustainaBility), features an ability to quickly optimize multiple pathways towards carbon neutrality based on user-input and parameter variability. We showcase DCARB through an application for The Ohio State University to demonstrate the outputs of the tool based on current projects outlined in the institution's climate action plan. Additionally, parameter variability is analyzed to explore how solutions might change due to data uncertainty or application to other campuses. The results encourage urgent action as they can provide cheaper pathways towards neutrality, including immediate consideration of land-based actions. Additionally, applications of the tool highlight challenges for achieving neutrality such as a reliance on market-based offsets, future market volatility, proper carbon credit accounting, and planning for future social and behavioral actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This study uses an experimental social survey in two large Japanese cities to explore citizens’ attitudes toward international voluntary carbon offsetting that encourages low carbon development in developing countries. In particular, the study focuses on whether the offsetting is a contribution to meet national target of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction under the Kyoto Protocol or reduction beyond the national target, using Kyoto credits generated from climate change mitigation projects in developing countries. The study finds that around 40% of the survey respondents chose real carbon offsetting over a gift certificate as compensation for their participation in the survey, around half of whom chose carbon offsetting contribution to the world. However, most of the current Japanese carbon offsetting providers utilise only the carbon offsetting contribution to the Japanese government. Thus, Japanese citizens have significant untapped potential for undertaking more carbon offsetting to meet targets other than national targets. However, the results also show that there is a general lack of understanding regarding the mechanism of carbon offsetting. Carbon offsetting providers in Japan and other countries that may have national self-imposed targets and allowing the usage of international carbon offsetting should therefore be considered, so as to provide individuals with the options of either contributing to their government to help it meet its national target or contributing to the world to help reduce GHG emissions beyond the national targets. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The EU has developed the first and largest international emissions trading system in the world. This development is puzzling due to the EU's scepticism to international emissions trading in greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the run-up to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. This article analyses how the EU ETS was initiated in the first place mainly from the perspectives of Liberal intergovernmentalism (LI) and multi-level governance (MLG). LI emphasises change in the positions of the EU member states as the key to understand what happened and why, whereas MLG opens up for change in the position of supranational entrepreneurial leaders as the key explanation. The main conclusion is that entrepreneurial epistemic leadership exercised by the European Commission was crucial for making the EU ETS. The principal means of leadership involved building up independent expertise on how an EU ETS could be designed, and mobilizing support from state and non-state actors at various levels of decision-making. This type of leadership may be needed more generally to deal with challenges characterized by high scientific uncertainty and social complexity in which learning is pertinent, such as climate change. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture, forestry and other land uses (AFOLU sector) cover the 24% of global emissions, representing the second hot spot in the contribution to climate change after the energy sector. Thus, the land sector plays a crucial role in the context of climate change, being both a contributor to the problem and part of its solution, particularly thanks to the capacity of soils and biomass to sequester atmospheric carbon. The challenge of this paper is to understand the extent to which sustainable land management can be a valuable solution for increasing the mitigation potential of the land sector, particularly at small-scale rural landscape level.The paper presents and tests a land-based approach to be applied at small-scale rural landscape level, aiming at reducing and offsetting GHG emissions from the livestock activities, one of the main sources of GHG emissions of the whole agricultural sector. The proposed land-based approach builds on an ensemble of methodologies, including Geographic Information System (GIS) elaboration, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and methodologies from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that allow estimating livestock GHG emissions and the mitigation potential of sustainable land-use options applied in the same small-scale rural landscape.Results from a case study in Italy show that land-based mitigation options applied at small-scale rural landscape level can reduce and completely offset the GHG livestock emissions of the same area, leading to carbon neutral livestock systems. Thus, this study confirms that the land sector can strongly contribute to climate change mitigation if sustainable land-use options are applied. • Land-based mitigation options at small-scale landscape level can lead to carbon neutral livestock systems. • Land sector can strongly contribute to climate change mitigation if sustainable land-based options are applied. • Land-based mitigation options can be applied in the immediate proximity of the livestock GHG emissions source. • Land-based climate change mitigation contributes also to a wide range of ecological co-benefits at landscape level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]