Modelling national, provincial and city-level low-carbon energy transformation pathways

Earlier emission peak and higher reduction rate after the peak are crucial for China's domestic low-carbon energy transformations and the 2 degrees C global climate target. However, much remains to be resolved concerning long-term sectoral and regional coping strategies. In this study, we developed a spatial downscaling framework to identify the roles played by different provinces and sectors in promoting early emission peak, and the spatiotemporal variations of city-level reduction potentials for the building sector by coupling an integrated assessment model with openly available information. Simulations show that peaking emissions five years earlier means an additional 12.5 Gt CO2 emission cut during 2015-2035 and building sector needs to increase renewable penetration to 22% and further improve emission efficiency by 12%, which are both greater than other end use sectors. More developed eastern regions would peak earlier than national target and some central cities are expected to double their per capita building emissions. While for the less developed northern and western regions to peak on time it is necessary that the gap of CO2 emission intensity between these cities and national average narrow down from 9.8t/thousand RMB in 2020 to 5.9t/thousand RMB in 2030.