Research on Low-Carbon Development Pathways of China’s Industrial Parks Under the Guidance of Big Data

The Chinese government pledged to strive to peak carbon emission by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. In the context of the industrial sector’s deepening response to climate change and the overall promotion of green transformation, industrial parks have become the critical trouble-shooters in achieving scientific and precise targeted carbon emission reductions in the industrial sector during the “14th Five-Year Plan” period and even in the future. Based on big data analysis, this paper analyzed the carbon emission data of 213 national industrial parks. This paper identified challenges and opportunities underlying the low-carbon transition of China’s industrial parks, and quantified decarbonization targets, pathways and potentials of the industrial parks towards 2035 and 2050. During 2015-2050, China’s industrial parks are expected to reduce CO2 emission by 1.8 gigaton (dropped by more than 60%) via industrial structure optimization, energy efficiency improvement, energy structure decarbonization, and carbon capture, utilization and storage; specifically, 0.8 and 1.0 gigaton of CO2 emission could be reduced during 2015-2035 and 2035-2050, respectively.