As a clean energy hub with abundant hydro, wind, solar, and biomass resources, and serving as an ecological shield in Southwest China, Yunnan Province holds strategic importance in regional energy system transformation toward carbon neutrality. However, it currently confronts challenges such as disruptions to power supplyu2212demand balance, resource development bottlenecks, and heightened environmental constraints, highlighting the need to balance growth with sustainability. This study reviews Yunnanu2019s energy resource potential, spatial-temporal characteristics, development constraints, as well as recent advances in implementation approaches and innovation deployment. A hydropower-centered, multi-energy complementary system emerges as a key pathway for Yunnanu2019s energy transition. By fostering positive economic and environmental synergies through multi-energy integration, technological innovation, and ecological conservation, the u201CYunnan approachu201D may offer a valuable case example for regional low-carbon transformation.
To address pressing COu2082 mitigation needs in the power sector, this review provides a pragmatic engineering framework for deploying catalytic COu2082 utilization (CCU) technologies. Synthesizing data from a global portfolio of industrial projects across ten major routesu2014from e-methanol to molten salt electrolysisu2014we critically address the operational constraint of excluding hazardous chemical units from power plant sites. We introduce a novel three-tiered deployment framework to resolve this: (A) capture-for-sale to external offtakers, (B) near-plant modular conversion into transportable products, and (C) on-site coupled production of low-hazard materials. Using a unified techno-economic model, we perform a cross-route comparison to identify critical cost drivers and profitability thresholds. Our analysis concludes that a portfolio approach is essential, guided by local resource endowments and market access. This review provides an actionable, data-driven guide for utilities, investors, and policymakers, bridging the gap between catalytic science and bankable, large-scale project deployment.
This paper reviews the twenty-year development path of LONGi, a leading global photovoltaic (PV) supplier, to distill the critical significance, defining characteristics, and key challenges of the PV industry. It subsequently proposes policy recommendations and international cooperation initiatives to ensure the sectoru2019s sustainable future. The PV industry has developed at a pace exceeding all expectations, establishing itself as a high-efficiency, low-cost cornerstone of the global energy transition. In particular, for vast regions with limited or unreliable access to electricity, hybrid PV-plus-storage systems have become a superior alternative to fossil-fuel-based systems in both cost and speed of deployment. Over the past two decades, the industry has navigated a series of major policy-driven and market-driven crises, revealing its inherent traits of high policy sensitivity and rapid technological iteration. To navigate these dynamics, companies must prioritize financial resilience and sustained technological leadership. To bolster the industryu2019s sustainable development, this paper proposes that Chinau2019s PV sector elevate product and technical standards for downstream solar cell production. Furthermore, it is essential for grid operators to expedite the introduction of policies supporting energy storage and to drive the technical reform of grid operations, thereby creating the conditions for broader participation in green power trading. Finally, this paper calls for deepened international cooperation, leveraging Chinau2019s comprehensive industrial ecosystem to accelerate global progress toward carbon neutrality.
The UK has successfully halved its territorial emissions since 1990, it has had consistent climate policies for over 18 years and continues to be seen as a climate leader internationally while other nations are considering reducing their climate commitments. In this perspective, I argue that the legislated Climate Change Act and the independent Climate Change Committee (CCC) has had a lot to do with the success by building trust, guiding progress and giving businesses confidence to invest. Around 75 countries now have similar climate framework laws with many similar to the UK model. However, we are moving to a world where future progress is becoming politically contested and geopolitical pressures are mounting. This perspective reflects on 18 years of UK progress under the Act and presents thoughts on the future and the benefits of international cooperation.
Systematic under-valuation of natural capital is creating growing macro-financial risks and raises the prospect of a u201CNatureu2019s Minsky Moment,u201D in which ecosystem degradation triggers abrupt asset repricing, a dynamic now increasingly recognised by central banks and supervisors as relevant to financial stability and capital adequacy. This article reviews existing nature-finance instruments and shows why carbon-centric and project-based approaches remain insufficient to close the global nature funding gap. It advances a framework that treats nature as critical infrastructure and examines how recent advances in NatureFinTech enable continuous, high-resolution measurement of ecosystem condition. Building on these capabilities, the paper introduces Nature Equity as an outcome-based asset class linked to verified ecosystem integrity. While early applications demonstrate promise, challenges remain in regulation, valuation, and market maturity.
Improved modeling approaches to support decision making are needed to help accelerate the transition to low-carbon energy systems. We offer insights into improving energy transition decision support modeling, drawing on our experience with the Net-Zero America (NZA) project and analogously designed ongoing projects led by researchers in Australia, Brazil, China, India, Republic of Korea, and Poland. The NZA study was impactful because of 1) uniquely high spatial, temporal, sectoral, technological, and socio-economic modeling and visualization using objective, transparent, and scientifically rigorous methods and 2) complementary policy-actionable bridging analyses informed by transparent and unusually extensive engagement with a broad set of stakeholders. The NZA approach established a new standard for high-resolution energy-transition decision support modeling, but further improvements in methods and tools are needed. A foremost need is improving optimization modeling so that it better reflects on-the-ground realities and risks associated with efforts to deploy energy technologies and infrastructure at the scales and pace needed to achieve mid-century net-zero emissions goals.
As climate mitigation and adaptation efforts are being implemented, precise and rapidly responsive weather forecasting with high spatio-temporal resolution has become paramount for optimizing the utilization of renewable energy resources, as well as making informed emergency response to extreme weather events. Conventional numerical weather prediction (NWP), based on solving complex physical equations, provides valuable forecasts for society but is computationally intensive and limited by model approximations. Recently, deep learning has emerged as a powerful complement to NWP, achieving notable gains in forecasting accuracy and computational efficiency. This review traces the evolution from NWP to data-driven deep learning approaches, highlighting the strengths of deep learning in short-term forecasts and its challenges in medium- and long-term forecasts, including model uncertainty and interpretability. It also reviews the potential of large-scale deep learning models in improving forecasting performance.
Industrialised countries face legally binding decarbonisation commitments, but carbon pricing and capital subsidies have not overcome structural cost disadvantages for steel decarbonisation. Developing countries need decades of primary steel production for development, but cannot afford the green premium and cannot take the conventional carbon-intensive path. Hydrogen-based direct reduced iron technology changes what is possible: green iron production can now locate where costs are lowest. Some developing country locations offer substantial cost advantages. This article proposes a production chain configuration where industrialised country subsidies flow through contract structures to enable developing country production. EU steelmakers gain lower-cost inputs and enhanced competitiveness. EU public funders achieve decarbonisation at lower cost while building a competitive green steel industry. Developing country producers gain bankable offtake enabling investment otherwise inaccessible, with export partnerships providing the foundation for domestic green steel sectors. The configuration works within existing policy frameworks, requiring adjustment rather than new mechanisms. Implementation can proceed through first-mover partnerships rather than awaiting comprehensive international coordination.
Optimizing cooling strategies of data centers is crucial to the carbon footprint of the world upon the explosive growth of artificial intelligence (AI). This article analyzes the necessity of transitioning from air cooling to liquid cooling in data centers and its challenges, and proposes technological and industry solutions. Liquid cooling technologies are hindered by challenges such as costs, leakage risks, and lack of standards and skilled workforce. The solutions lie in continued improvement in design methodology and technology performance, use of AI-assisted management tools, and advancing standardization and industry ecosystems.
Decades of successful air quality policies have significantly reduced fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations, a major public health achievement. This success, however, presents an atmospheric paradox. The reduction in PM2.5 mass has lowered the atmospheric condensation sink, which normally scavenges the molecular clusters that initiate new particle formation (NPF). This creates more favourable conditions for the formation of smaller, potentially more hazardous, ultrafine particles (UFPs). Furthermore, technologies central to net-zero strategies, such as amine-based carbon capture, risk creating new, concentrated sources of potent NPF precursors. This confluence of factors exposes a critical blind spot in air quality management. Current regulations and industrial risk assessments are almost exclusively mass-based, overlooking particle number concentrations and the associated health risks of UFPs. This article argues that the pursuit of climate goals must not create unforeseen public health burdens. It calls for the strategic integration of particle number and size distribution measurements into existing air quality networks to build the evidence base needed to validate models, inform future policy, and ensure that climate solutions do not inadvertently establish a new generation of localised air pollution problems.
Hydrogen as a decarbonization pathway is still a nascent industry facing cost, demand, and infrastructure constraints. This paper reviews current progress of hydrogen utilization across the transportation, industry, building, and power sectors in China. It then assesses the economic competitiveness of green hydrogen in the heavy-duty truck, steel, and synthetic ammonia industries in China, based on a learning rate curve estimate of green hydrogen production and cost till 2060 and a comparative estimate of fuel and feedstock costs of the green hydrogen-based and fossil fuel-based solutions. The results show that if by 2030, green hydrogen production could expand to 5 million tons per year and its cost drop to within 30 CNY/kg, fuel cell heavy-duty trucks would become competitive with diesel-based commercial heavy-duty trucks in terms of fuel costs (around 300 CNY/ton). If by 2040, green hydrogen production could reach 20 million tons per year and its future cost drop to around 15 CNY/kg, hydrogen-based synthetic ammonia may reach cost parity with natural gas-based synthetic ammonia. It further discusses the core need of cost reduction to promote utilization of green hydrogen through technology innovation, demand creation, and infrastructure improvement.
Power system decarbonization enables society-wide efforts to achieve carbon neutrality. This paper outlines the vision, pathways, and policy implications of constructing a new power system that is compatible with carbon neutrality goals. It analyzes eight key technological components of the new power system: renewable energy integration, new electricity transmission, flexible distribution networks, smart consumption and supply-demand interaction, energy storage regulation, grid digitalization, operation optimization, and carbon accounting. Their technological progress, demonstration projects, challenges, and trends are reviewed, and a technological roadmap is presented. The paper offers a point of reference for policy-making regarding power system transformation toward carbon neutrality.
This article discusses seven categories of climate and sustainability innovations, differentiating between transformative and incremental ones, and proposes a systemic innovation framework that envisions the transformative climate and sustainability innovations needed. The framework reframes societal innovations: (i) from reactive, problem-solving, sector-based with technology neutrality, to proactive, vision-driven, need-based with products and services neutrality; (ii) from fragmented to integrated, with the combination of innovative technologies, policies, financial instruments, business models and cooperative approaches, products of the creative industry, and the educative system; and (iii) from closed to open ecosystem with radical collaboration. It also emphasizes mental transformations including metacognitive reframing as well as caring, sharing, and daring leadership.
Wind and solar power are central to Chinau2019s carbon neutrality strategy and energy system transformation. This review adopts a system-oriented perspective to examine the future development of wind, photovoltaic (PV), and concentrated solar power (CSP), situating technological progress within a broader framework that includes forecasting approaches, power system flexibility, energy storage integration, and sectoral coupling. It summarizes the spatial potential and projected capacity trajectories under carbon neutrality goals, with estimates suggesting a combined capacity of 5,496 to 7,662 GW of wind and solar power by 2060, constituting more than 83% of Chinau2019s total installed power capacity. While notable progress has been made in technological maturity and the reduction of power generation costs, supported by robust domestic supply chains, persistent challenges remain across technical and systemic dimensions, including limited generation efficiency, the high cost of supporting energy storage technologies, and constraints on grid flexibility and policy coordination. This review further proposes a strategic roadmap for sustainable development, emphasizing the integrated deployment of wind and solar as the dominant sources of power generation.
Decarbonizing the energy-intensive chemical industry has emerged as a pivotal challenge in recent years. This article underscores the urgent need for green and smart chemistry and explores decarbonization in chemical sector using a multi-scale smart systems engineering approach. By examining innovations across various scalesu2014from micro-level materials discovery to meso-level process optimization, and up to macro-level chemical industrial park design/redesignu2014this review illuminates how intelligence approaches can surrogate traditional mechanistic models and thus revolutionize efficiency, sustainability, and carbon neutrality of the chemical industry. Additionally, this review highlights the role of cross-scale modeling in addressing complex challenges in chemical processes through practical applications cases. Further key challenges are identified including data management, model interoperability, and industrial integration, alongside economic, social, and ethical considerations. Finally, it outlines future research directions, emphasizing interdisciplinary approaches to advance the industry toward a greener, more efficient, and carbon-neutral future, aligning with global sustainability objectives.
To achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, China must address the complex challenge of decarbonizing key industrial sectors, including steel, cement, petrochemicals, and non-ferrous metals. This review presents a comprehensive evaluation of major decarbonization technologies across these core sectors, including energy efficiency, clean electrification, hydrogen alternatives, feedstock substitution, recycling, carbon removal, and digitalization. Staged projections highlight the central role of different technologies in achieving industrial decarbonization: energy efficiency improvement (EEI) and feedstock substitution and waste recycling (FSWR) technologies before 2035, the accelerated deployment of clean electricity and green hydrogen between 2035 and 2050, and carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) from 2050 onward. The review further offers policy recommendations to support technological advancement, promote large-scale deployment, and integrate low-carbon solutions into industrial development pathways.
