Alternative pathways to CO2 reduction in Gansu province, China.

Climate change has been considerable concerned because of the increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Gansu province is a typical less-developed and heavy chemical industrial province, its CO₂ emission per unit of the gross domestic product (GDP) is 252.52 ton per million Chinese yuan (t/M-CNY) in 2019, which is 48.42% more than national average value. Gansu province faces the following dual pressures including maintaining economic growth and reducing carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. This paper establishes a low carbon development system dynamics model in order to investigate the effects of four carbon reduction measures (technical progress, industrial transformation, fuel substitution, and low carbon awareness) on reducing CO₂ emission over the period of 2020–2030. The simulation results indicate that, without direct intervention, the CO₂ emissions per unit of GDP is projected to be 171.34 t/M-CNY by 2030. While utilizing technical progress, implementing industrial transformation, fuel substitution, and low carbon awareness could potentially be 2.12%, 3.33%, 0.72% and 1.27%, respectively less than that. For the sake of achieving the goal of CO₂ reduction in the long run, the local government should address today's industrial transformation and adopt reasonable combination of adjustment and control policies immediately. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]