China's national carbon emissions trading system (ETS) has become the largest carbon market worldwide and is considered an effective policy tool for addressing the challenges of climate change. ETS significantly affects corporate profitability and revenue generation, but research on this aspect remains limited. This study employs mediation and moderation effect models, using unit-level monitoring and order-specific trading data from the first compliance phase of national ETS (including 5520 units from 2162 power firms) in China, to estimate the impact of enterprises' responses to the ETS. The results highlight several important insights. First, enterprises' positive responses to the market (such as using high-quality fuel) are positively correlated with revenue and profit (i.e. net sales and compliance rate), with carbon intensity playing a significant mediating role in this relationship. Second, heterogeneity analysis reveals variations across different types of units and regions, with smaller units and those in western regions exhibiting greater sensitivity to compliance. Third, compared to the less experienced national market, pilot markets show a greater propensity to sell allowances and ensure compliance with emission targets. This study provides a more micro-level perspective on how China's ETS influences enterprises and offers policy-relevant evidence to inform decision-making.

The Coal Triangle Region, comprising Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, and Ningxia, is the world's largest coalproducing region, accounting for 72% of China's output and 38% of the global total in 2025. As China advances its decarbonization agenda, the region faces a transition problem of reducing coal dependence while maintaining energy security, industrial stability, and employment security. This review synthesizes insights from academic literature, policy reports, and relevant databases to examine the region's structural characteristics, transition pathways, and policy frameworks. It identifies strong structural lock-in, with coal-based industries contributing 20.3% of regional industrial GDP in 2024 and remaining a cornerstone of regional economic development. This dependence constrains both the timing and pace of low-carbon transition. Consequently, the region is expected to peak later than the national average, with a slower post-peak decline in emissions. Deep decarbonization will require a shift from production-control measures to technology-driven mitigation, particularly through renewable power expansion, hydrogen-based industrial pathways, and carbon dioxide removal technologies. The transition also poses major social challenges, as declining coal demand may lead to job losses and skill mismatches among the more than 2 million coal-related workers. Addressing these interconnected challenges requires a comprehensive just transition framework integrating industrial decarbonization, clean-energy substitution, employment resilience, transition finance, and interregional burden sharing. This review provides policy-relevant insights for advancing low-carbon transition in coal-dependent regions in China and beyond.

We provide the quantitative evaluation of the incentive structure of China National Emission Trading Scheme (CN ETS) by analyzing 2,282 compliance firms and find that CN ETS provides economic incentives for emission abatement through trading profits but exhibits a Matthew effect, whereby firms with larger emission reductions achieve higher marginal profits. In the second compliance cycle, the market incentive effect improved, evidenced by an increase in trading profits per ton of emission reductions and a weaking of the Matthew effect. The benchmark allowance allocation has effectively encouraged low-emission-intensity coal-fired units while expediting the phase-out of high-emission intensity units. However, gas-fired units, despite their lowest emission intensity and high flexibility, receive weak incentives. Central state-owned enterprises and units with prior experience in China’s ETS pilots, exhibit lower trading participation. Enhancing allowances scarcity, implementing paid allowances, strengthening compliance enforcement and penalties, and increasing trading activity are suggested to improve the CN ETS.

China's national emissions trading scheme (CN ETS) is the world's largest carbon market in terms of covered emissions, yet rigorous empirical evidence on its mitigation effectiveness remains limited. Using a balanced panel of 1,957 thermal power units from 2018 to 2024, this study estimates the causal impacts of compliance pressure under the CN ETS on CO2 emissions. Units with allowance deficits reduced CO2 emission intensity by 0.8% and total emissions by 3.5%. Emission reductions are concentrated among small coal-fired units and are driven by efficiency improvements, higher heat supply ratios, and improved fuel quality. In contrast, the impacts on large coal-fired units are limited. Greater intensity reductions are observed among local state-owned and private firms, captive plants, non-pilot units, and technologically less advanced units. Overall, the intensity-based design provides limited incentives to curb output among low-emission-intensity units, suggesting the intensity-based mechanism functions as a transitional arrangement toward a cap-and-trade system.

China’s iron and steel sector is pivotal to global industrial decarbonization, yet near-zero transition pathways under heterogeneous regional resource endowments remain poorly understood. Here we develop a plant-resolved, spatially explicit framework that integrates a facility-level emission database, a cost-minimizing technology model and geospatial resource matching. We find that blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace production accounts for 83% of sectoral emissions, while 35% of blast furnaces are 10–15 years old, creating retrofit opportunities and carbon lock-in risks. Achieving a 97% emissions reduction by 2060 requires accelerated retrofits before 2040, retirement of 140 small facilities, expansion of hydrogen metallurgy to 34.6%, and a limited role for carbon capture and storage at 12.1%. Relative to business as usual, the near-zero pathway cuts cumulative system costs by 2,184 billion United States dollars (USD) by 2060 despite USD 436 billion in stranded assets. Northern and coastal regions favour hydrogen metallurgy, whereas inland provinces concentrate 46% of national carbon capture capacity. This study highlights differentiated regional pathway for decarbonizing hard-to-abate sectors under technological lock-in and uneven resource endowments. By integrating plant-level heterogeneity with regional resource constraints, this study maps region-specific technology pathways for China’s near-zero steel transition, revealing how geography and resource endowments shape decarbonization.

China’s pursuit of carbon neutrality presents a dual challenge: sustaining investment in low-carbon infrastructure while minimizing the economic risk of asset stranding in the carbon-intensive sectors. Despite the importance of this trade-off, existing research often overlooks the economic costs, and relevant sector-specific risks associated with low-carbon-tech transition. This study addresses these gaps by integrating a bottom-up technology-rich framework (MESSAGEix model) with post-simulation analysis to evaluate how the timelines of carbon neutrality and technological progress affect capital risk in the power, steel, and cement industries in China. The results show that stranding risks are most acute in the legacy coal-fired units for the power industry, blast furnaces and coke ovens in the steel industry, and new suspension preheater kilns lacking carbon capture retrofits in the cement industry. Additionally, the results show that accelerating the timeline for carbon neutrality can reduce stranded asset risk by inducing timely clean investment, conditional on rapid technological progress. The study further identifies a discount-rate paradox and draws attention to the emerging risk of green asset stranding driven by rapid technological obsolescence. These results show the importance of sector-specific transition strategies to carbon neutrality and offer quantitative and empirical evidence to guide optimal technological investment and policy design in support of China’s climate goals.

City-scale, source-resolved methane (CH4) inventories are needed in China because prefecture-level cities differ in energy systems, agricultural activities, and waste management. These differences lead to divergent dominant sources and mitigation needs. Yet city-level CH4 inventories across the energy, agriculture, and waste sectors remain scarce. This scarcity limits policy design, targeting, and evaluation. Here we develop a harmonized, annually consistent, multisector, source-resolved CH4 inventory for 339 prefecture-level cities in China during 2018-2024. We further use Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) driver attribution and scenario analysis to examine recent emission drivers and explore possible mitigation pathways. Over this period, national anthropogenic CH4 emissions increased by 2.61%, with regional heterogeneity shaped by differences in energy dependence, livestock management, and waste treatment. LMDI decomposition identifies economic activity as the dominant positive driver. Emission-intensity effects alternated between mitigating and reinforcing impacts, while structural effects were minor and population effects varied across space and time. Scenario simulations suggest that integrated multisector strategies could reduce national CH4 from 61.69 Mt in 2024-51.26 Mt in 2030 and 22.26 Mt in 2060, corresponding to a 63.9% reduction. These reductions are primarily driven by energy-sector measures, complemented by improvements in agriculture and waste management. This data set and attribution inform city-specific mitigation planning and source targeting, support monitoring, reporting, and verification, and provide a baseline for benchmarking progress toward national methane targets.

Tracking emission changes throughout the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is critical for revealing the impact of the pandemic on pollutant and carbon emissions; yet detailed assessments across this period remain limited. In this study, we developed integrative emission inventories for China in 2020 and 2023, and combined them with the inventory of 2018 to analyze national emissions of CO2 and nine air pollutants before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Emissions were mainly concentrated in economically industrialized and developed provinces like Hebei, Shandong and Jiangsu, with higher emission intensities in energy-dependent provinces. 2020 saw notable declines in SO2 (-18.1 %), VOCs (-32.6 %), and CO (-8.8 %) emissions compared to 2018 levels due to pandemic lockdowns and emission reduction policies, while CO2 (11.6 %), NOx (16.8 %), and PM10 (21.9 %) increased owing to expanded power generation and metal production. As economic activities rebounded in 2023, emissions of CO2 (16.6 %) and nine air pollutants (3.2 %-15.1 %) increased compared with those in 2020, although adjustments in the energy structure helped reduce residential emissions of certain pollutants like PM and CO. Regionally, CO2 emissions in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH), Yangtze River Delta (YRD), Pearl River Delta (PRD), and Fenwei Plain (FWP) regions continued to rise, while VOCs declined during the pandemic but rebounded afterward. The FWP region, dominated by heavy industry and fossil energy production, showed persistent PM2.5 growth, facing greater challenges for emission reduction. These findings reveal the regional and sectoral emission dynamics throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, supporting integrated air pollutants and carbon management policies in China.

China is the world's largest source of methane (CH4) emissions and has signalled its intention to incorporate methane into its climate commitments. Designing effective methane-mitigation strategies requires robust estimates of up-to-date emissions, particularly when the pronounced spatial heterogeneity and temporal variability of each emission source are considered. However, there is currently an absence of source-level, up-to-date and dynamic CH4 emission estimations in China, constraining the formulation of measurable targets. In this study, we present the Chinese Methane Emissions Database (CMED), a nationwide, source-level, monthly emission inventory covering the period 2018-2024. The CMED provides a comprehensive account of anthropogenic CH₄ emissions in China. Uncertainty analysis of the CMED indicates that CH₄ emission estimates fall within an acceptable range (±3.57%), underscoring the robustness of the dataset. This comprehensive dataset enables more accurate analyses by providing integrated, source-level and temporally explicit information, offering critical support for policy evaluation under China's new round of Nationally Determined Contributions climate commitments released in 2025.

Waste is the bridge linking resource consumption and greenhouse gas generation, and waste landfills are the main anthropogenic source of methane (CH4). The United States (US)-China Joint Glasgow Declaration and the Global Methane Pledge are committed to reducing tractable CH4 emissions; however, differences between the involved countries as well as their generation forecast processes have hampered cooperation. In this study, we provide a deep insight into CH4 emissions from municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills and identify the disparities in CH4 emissions with local socio-economic conditions. The US and China, the world's two largest economies, generated approximately 3.73 and 1.48 million tonnes of CH4 from 1248 to 1955 landfills in 2012 using the FOD/bottom-up method, with corresponding 26.93 and 11.94 kg per tonne waste and emission value from each landfill ranging between 100 and 105 and 10-5-105 tonnes. The spatial distribution was also quantified and compared with national, state/province, and urban agglomeration perspectives based on historical MSW variations (1990-2015) to clarify the triangular relationship between the economic situation, waste properties, and landfill CH4 emissions. High-density CH4 emission regions spatially overlapped with highly developed urban agglomerations, positively correlated with the local gross domestic product (GDP) and population (p < 0.01), with more emissions generated per thousand US dollars in the US (0.25 tonnes) than in China (0.16 tonnes). The US tertiary industry and China's secondary industry contributed to high CH4 emissions from the waste sector. The increase in tertiary industry might reduce the waste sector's CH4 emissions. This study will help to understand this new triangular relationship and predict future patterns of CH4 emissions.

China's coal-dominated power structure raises concerns that indirect emissions from electricity generation may offset or even surpass direct emission reduction benefits of new energy vehicles (NEVs). Thus, conducting a life-cycle assessment of NEVs is critical to objectively evaluate these trade-offs. Here, we carried out this assessment for passenger cars, considering NEVs development and power structure transition. Our methodology combines vehicle fleet projection, power grid projection and emission calculation model. Results show that although significant NEVs benefits, by 2035, under baseline power structure, NEVs indirect emission will still account for 31-39% and 17-23% of total emission for CO2 and NOx nationwide. Moreover, it will offset 50% and 18% of use-phase CO2 and NOx reduction, while under clean power structure, these ratios will decrease to similar to 32% and 14%. Notably, large discrepancies of NEVs trade-offs exist across 31 provinces. Besides, invisible emission transfer is embedded in electricity transfer: 31% and 69% of NEVs' indirect NOx emissions in Shanxi and Inner Mongolia are projected from NEVs power consumption in other provinces. Therefore, it's urgent to synergistically clean transport and energy sector.

Under national carbon neutrality targets, energy-producing regions hold significant responsibilities for reducing emissions. Given the diverse economic, industrial, and resource profiles of these regions, tailored strategies are essential for designing regional emission pathways. Currently, a systematic analysis that simultaneously integrates broader national climate objectives and regional heterogeneity is lacking, hindering the formulation of localized roadmaps. To address this gap, we propose an integrated analytical framework combing top-down and bottom-up approaches. It considers macro-level constraints (socio-economic development) and micro-level feasibility (renewable energy potential and forest carbon sinks), incorporating diverse regional characteristics such as resource endowment, energy consumption patterns, and industrial structures. We apply this approach to an energy-producing region in central China. Our analysis highlights the need for a clean energy transition that maintains energy security and meets growing electricity demands. By 2060, wind and solar power are projected to account for 87 % of electricity generation, representing a substantial shift from the current fossil-fuel-dependent structure. Significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions can be achieved by optimizing the energy structure, enforcing production controls, and deploying advanced technologies across industry, transportation, and buildings. Additionally, enhancing carbon removal strategies will further support emission reduction targets. This framework demonstrates the feasibility of achieving climate objectives in fossil-fuel-dependent regions, providing strategic guidance for integrating regional traits into national decarbonization plans.

Water scarcity is a global challenge in many emerging economies, including China. China is one of the most extensive freshwater users and has set water efficiency improvement goals for 2030 at the prefecture level. However, no systematic water use and savings comparison exists across prefectures and sectors. Here, we used datasets of water withdrawal for 10,608 industrial and 1715 agricultural sub-sectors for 343 prefectures, and explored the opportunities to reduce water use. Results show that 10% of the least water-efficient industrial sub-sectors represent a disproportionate 46% water use. 18.9 km3 (+/- 3.2%) water saving in industry and 50.3 km3 (+/- 2.3%) in agriculture could be achieved, equivalent to Russia's annual demand. A minority of sectors, including cloth(ing)- and chemical-manufacturing, rice-, vegetable- and fruit-cultivation, could contribute the most to water savings. Our study is essential for identifying water use and efficiency information for individual prefectures and sectors.

China's national emissions trading scheme (ETS), announced in 2017, has become the largest carbon market worldwide, operating alongside pre-existing regional pilots. However, detailed assessments regarding the newly constructed national ETS, particularly in comparison with the regional pilots, remain limited. Using unit-level monitoring data from China's power sector and combining intermediary and moderate models, this study investigates the carbon mitigation impact of China's national ETS relative to pilot ETSs. We find that while both the national and pilot ETSs significantly reduce carbon intensities, the effect was more pronounced in pilots. A mechanism behind this reduction is the improvement in fuel quality, as evidenced by a decrease in carbon content. Regional economic growth and a higher share of industrial activity appear to offset the policy's overall effectiveness. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the mitigation effects were greater in smaller and older units compared to their larger or newer counterparts. Our unit-level empirical evaluation of China's national ETS not only advances theoretical understanding of emissions trading mechanisms but also provides actionable insights for refining or establishing carbon market policies in emerging economies.

In the first compliance phase, China's national emissions trading scheme (ETS) became the world's largest carbon market, regulating 4.5 billion tons of carbon emissions annually from 2019 to 2020 (2.8 times the EU ETS level). However, an ex post analysis of this market is lacking. Using unit-level monitoring and order-specific trading data, we explore the performance of China's national ETS and the responses of regulated power-generating plants. We find tightened supervision, profitable incentives, stable but trade-sensitive prices, and overall compliance, with 93.9% of units and 99.6% of obligations compliant. We also observe reductions in carbon intensities and emissions of 2.46%-3.13% and 0.86%, respectively, despite 1.63% production growth. Most abatements come from enhancing energy efficiency (57%), improving fuel quality (31%), retiring outdated units, and promoting cleaner energy (particularly biomass). Our results highlight the effectiveness of China's national ETS and the potential for ongoing renovations and unit-targeted planning.

To address environmental issues related to heating, the Chinese government launched the "Clean Heating Plan in the Northern Region" as a national energy transition strategy, renovating heating systems for over 30 million households in 88 cities. With the completion of five implementation phases by March 2024, this study presents an evaluation framework to comprehensively assess the environmental, health, and economic impacts of the policy. On-site surveys were conducted annually, monitoring the advancements of clean heating renovations in over 100,000 households across these cities. Combined with air pollution metrics, meteorological data, and city statistical records, a Difference-in-Differences (DID) model with continuous treatment was used to evaluate the environmental benefits associated with the incremental adoption of clean heating in each city. Subsequently, a health impact assessment and cost-benefit analysis were conducted to analyze changes in all-cause mortality and their associated economic benefits. Results indicated an average PM2.5 reduction of 10.31 mu g/m3 (95 % CI: [9.25, 11.371) per heating season and an annual reduction of 1573 in all-cause mortality (95 % CI: [630, 25181). The economic benefits of these improvements were estimated at 717.1 billion CNY, contributing to an average benefit-cost ratio of 1.48. The proposed evaluation framework serves as a structured method for evaluating the environmental, health, and economic impacts of the energy policy and provides robust evidence to support implementing similar initiatives.

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.

Cities play a crucial role in implementing carbon reduction strategies and are essential administrative in this effort. A full-scope city CO2 emission inventory is important for designing effective emission control strategies and is thus crucial for achieving China’s carbon peaking and neutrality goals. However, recent research has focused on Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, with insufficient attention paid to Scope 3 emissions. In this study, we construct a methodological model for full-scope carbon emission accounting at the city level and establish a dataset that includes Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions for Chinese cities in 2023. This dataset provides valuable data support for intercity comparisons and intracity management of city-wide carbon emissions. The total carbon emissions across Chinese cities in 2023 show significant quantitative and spatial differences. Notably, the emissions in the top 10 cities are almost 90 to 160 times higher than those in the bottom 10 cities. Cities with higher Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions are predominantly located in the southeastern coastal areas, whereas cities with higher Scope 3 carbon emissions are concentrated in rapidly developing areas of central China.

Quantifying the dynamic evolution of grid carbon footprint factors (GCFFs) is crucial for evaluating electricity-related emissions and advancing China's dual-carbon goals. This study develops a dynamic model for 30 provinces covering 2020-2060 under three renewable energy development scenarios. Results reveal substantial spatial heterogeneity: between 2020 and 2022, hydropower-rich provinces such as Sichuan and Yunnan maintained GCFF values more than 70% below the national average, whereas coal-dependent regions including Shanxi and Inner Mongolia remained over 40% higher. Under the "Ambitious renewable energy development" scenario (S2), the national average GCFF in 2060 declines by 4.53% relative to the "Business as usual" scenario (representing a 6.22% decrease relative to the "Conservative renewable energy development" (S1) scenario), with reductions exceeding 80% in Jilin and Hainan. Export-sector analysis shows that aluminum-related electricity emissions are highly sensitive to power decarbonization (62% reduction in Shandong under the S2 scenario), while cement emissions are primarily demand-driven. This study establishes the first long-term coupling framework of provincial GCFFs with export-sector emissions, incorporating both non-fossil electricity and upstream extraction. The findings provide a high-resolution evidence base for subnational carbon accounting and targeted low-carbon transition strategies.