• Energy Research

Abstract The Paris Agreement set long-term global climate goals to pursue stabilization of the global mean temperature increase at below 2 °C (the so-called 2 °C goal). Individual countries submitted their own short-term targets, mostly for the year 2030. Meanwhile, the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs) were designed to help set multiple societal goals with respect to socioeconomic development, the environment, and other issues. Climate policies can lead to intended or unintended consequences in various sectors, but these types of side effects rarely have been studied in China, where climate policies will play an important role in global greenhouse gas emissions and sustainable development is a major goal. This study identified the extent to which climate policies in line with the 2 °C goal could have multi-sectoral consequences in China. Carbon constraints in China in the 2Deg scenario are set to align with the global 2 °C target based on the emissions per capita convergence principle. Carbon policies for NDC pledges as well as policies in China regarding renewables, air pollution control, and land management were also simulated. The results show that energy security and air quality have co-benefits related to climate policies, whereas food security and land resources experienced negative side effects (trade-offs). Near-term climate actions were shown to help reduce these trade-offs in the mid-term. A policy package that included food and land subsidies also helped achieve climate targets while avoiding the adverse side effects caused by the mitigation policies. The findings should help policymakers in China develop win–win policies that do not negatively affect some sectors, which could potentially enhance their ability to take climate actions to realize the global 2 °C goal within the context of sustainable development.

To realize China’s target of carbon neutrality by 2060, the country’s domestic textile industry faces tremendous pressure to reduce emissions. We assessed the potential of socioeconomic conditions and climate policies for reducing the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of textile products in China up to 2050 using a life cycle assessment (LCA) approach and integrated assessment model (IAM) within the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP) framework. The results showed that a combination of socioeconomic conditions and climate policies can reduce annual carbon emissions by 89.0% and reduce accumulate emissions by 34.3% by 2050. Among the strategies examined in this study, energy decarbonization and power conservation exhibited the highest potential for reducing emissions. We also demonstrated the importance of improving industry interconnectivity, developing textile recycling frameworks, and promoting sustainable consumption.