Abstract:

China has pledged to reach a peak in the nation’s economy-wide CO2 emissions by 2030 and to reach carbon neutrality by 2060. This study uses cutting-edge emission modeling tools to assess the potential for reducing climate pollutants from advanced policy packages compared with currently adopted policies for China’s transportation sector. The study provides China with a technical foundation for consideration of climate goals during the 14th Five-Year-Plan (FYP) period (2021-2025) and over the long term. The author found that transportation-related climate pollutant emissions in China would grow rapidly without further mitigation actions. Policies under two analyses—the business-as-usual Adopted Policies scenario and the Low Ambition scenario—are expected to yield only limited climate benefits in the near-term (the next five to ten years) but are insufficient to reduce or even stabilize climate pollutant emissions in the longer term.