Toward carbon neutrality in China: A national wide carbon flow tracing and the CO2 emission control strategies for CO2-intensive industries

Massive emission of CO2 as a potential driver of climate change has become a global issue presented in front of the whole human beings. Motivated by the CO2 cut-down requirement, China has aggressively undertaken restrictions aiming for peaking the carbon dioxide by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060. However, due to the complex structures of industry and fossil fuel consumption in China, specific carbon neutrality route and the CO2 reduction potential are still open questions. To address the bottleneck of the “dual-carbon” target, quantitative carbon transfer and emission of different sectors are traced based on mass balance model. The future CO2 reduction potentials are predicted based on structural path decomposition, with consideration of energy efficiency enhancement and process innovation. Electricity generation, iron & steel industry and cement industry are identified as the top three CO2-intensive sectors, with CO2 intensity of at around 517 kg CO2/MWh, 2017 kg CO2/t CS and 843 kg CO2/t clinker, respectively. Non-fossil power is suggested to substitute coal-fired boilers to achieve decarbonization of the electricity generation industry, which is the largest energy conversion sector in China. As two dominant energy end-users, the iron & steel industry and cement industry exhibit different CO2 emission sources, requiring divergent approaches for low-carbon development. For the iron & steel industry, around 89 % direct CO2 emission comes from fossil fuel. Immediate energy efficiency enhancements are suggested, followed by process innovations such as oxy-blast furnaces, hydrogen-based reduction, and scrap-based electric arc furnaces. For the cement industry, around 66 % of direct CO2 emission comes from carbonate decomposition. The process innovation with CO2 enrich and recovery would be the most effectiveness for carbon reduction. Staged low-carbon policies of the three CO2-intensive industries are introduced at the end of this paper, which is capable of achieving 75–80 % cut down of CO2 emission intensity in China till 2060. [Display omitted] •National-scaled carbon flow is traced to display the carbon transfer and emission.•Non-fossil energy power is necessary to cut down CO2 in electricity industry.•CO2 emission in iron & steel industry is dominant by fossil fuel combustion.•CO2 emission in cement industry mainly comes from carbonate decomposition.•Energy efficiency and process innovation are crucial for carbon neutrality.