碳中和行动的国际趋势分析

中国在第75届联合国大会一般性辩论上提出2060碳中和目标.考虑到已有研究较少关注碳中和或缺少对其国际形势的认识,文中梳理分析了全球31个碳中和承诺国的目标内容和政策法规文件.通过对国际碳中和行动的趋势分析和评述,认为碳中和正在成为全球气候行动关注的重要内容,对于推进全球应对气候变化具有积极意义;而欧盟等发达国家/地区...     

何谓“碳中和”?

2020年9月22日,在第75届联合国大会一般性辩论上,中国向全世界宣布将提高国家自主贡献力度,采取更加有力的政策和措施,CO2排放力争于2030年前达到峰值,努力争取2060年前实现碳中和[1]。目标提出后,引起全球研究者和政策制定者对碳中和目标范围及内涵的广泛讨论和关注。目前各国的长期目标中提出了碳中和及气候中和等多个相关概念,本文将对这些概念及其政策实践进行简单综述,以辨析碳中和目标的范围及内涵。     

碳中和视角下全球农业减排固碳政策措施及对中国的启示

碳中和是指人类活动造成的碳排放与全球人为碳吸收量在一定时期内达到平衡,也称为净零排放 [1].《巴黎协定》第四条提出采取减排增汇措施以实现21世纪后半叶人为温室气体排放量与汇的清除量达到平衡 [2].越来越多的国家正将其转化为战略和行动,目前已有100多个国家提出碳中和目标承诺,并明确了碳中和时间表.2020年9月第7...     

中国碳中和目标内涵与实现路径综述

碳中和已成为引领中国中长期可持续发展的纲领性目标.通过对已有研究成果的梳理与评述,从目标内涵和实现路径两个方面探讨了"碳中和是一场广泛而深刻的经济社会系统性变革"这一重要命题.中国碳中和目标与全球温控2℃/1.5℃目标内涵一致,需要以阶段性减排成效为基础制定中期行动方案来逐步实现长期减排目标.作为实现碳中和目标的两个主...     

不同情景达到碳中和下中国区域气候变化的预估

利用第6次耦合模式比较计划（CMIP6）中的9个全球气候模式的模拟结果,通过CO₂浓度达峰时间确定SSP1-1.9和SSP1-2.6两种情景下的全球碳中和时间,预估了全球碳中和下中国区域气候较历史参考期（1995—2014年）的未来变化,分析不同时间达到碳中和下气候响应差异,并与未实现碳中和的SSP2-4.5情景下的气候变化对比。结果表明,SSP1-1.9和SSP1-2.6情景下全球达到碳中和的时间分别为2041年和2063年,相较于历史参考期,SSP1-1.9/SSP1-2.6下中国区域平均年气温上升1.22/1.58℃,平均年降水量增加7.1％/9.9％。SSP1-2.6（晚碳中和）较SSP1-1.9（早碳中和）情景下年均温增高约0.36℃,最大升温区位于西南及高原地区。对降水而言,晚碳中和较早碳中和全国平均年降水量增加约2.7％。全年及夏季降水量显著增加区主要在西北,新疆地区出现降水增加超过8％的大值区,冬季则集中于黄河中下游,增幅也超过8％。未碳中和的SSP2-4.5情景下中国区域的升温显著强于SSP1-2.6（碳中和）情景,年平均气温高约0.61℃,西北地区是升温差别大值区,其中新疆部分地区增加升温超过0.8℃。SSP2-4.5较SSP1-2.6情景年降水量在西北地区增加显著,内蒙古西北部最大增加超过10％。有无碳中和对冬季降水影响更大,SSP2-4.5情景下新疆部分地区降水增加比SSP1-2.6下多20％左右,云南部分地区则少15％左右,表明有无碳中和对气候的影响远大于早晚碳中和。     

江苏省未来植被变化对“碳达峰、碳中和”的影响评价

在全国推进“碳达峰、碳中和”的政策背景下,包含碳汇的模型研究对指导减排具有重要意义。以江苏省为例,依据1997—2018年的年碳排放量数据建立ARIMA(5,2,0)模型,对2019—2060年的年碳排放量进行预测和估算。结果显示,江苏省年碳排放量在未来40 a内将保持波动上升的趋势。根据江苏省植被类型分布面积和相关植物的光合速率,得到每种植被类型的CO2年吸收总量,进一步分析不同植被变化下的减排方案,评价未来植被变化对“碳达峰、碳中和”的影响。在植被可增加面积有限且仅种植光合速率较大的经济林的条件下：1） 若2030年后CO2排放量保持不变,排放量应控制在2030年的26.94%,植被面积需增加1.078×109 m2才能在2060年顺利实现碳中和。2） 若2030年后每年CO2排放量与预测结果保持一致,2030年开始年排放量在预测结果的基础上减少81.06%,植被面积需增加1.081×109 m2,可在2060年顺利实现碳中和。3） 若2030年以后CO2排放量以2005年排放量为参考进行减排,并且减少到2005年排放量的75%以下时,不需要增加植被面积,也可在2060年顺利实现碳中和。     

双碳目标下建立碳排放总量控制制度的思考与展望

中国在碳达峰碳中和的“1+N”政策体系中提出要将能耗双控过渡到碳排放双控,建立碳排放总量控制制度。已有研究大多关注目标制定、碳排放分配的方法学,或以制度体系设计为对象进行分析,缺乏对分解模式、不同责任主体协同、责任主体与排放源匹配等制度关键问题的讨论。文中从制度实施角度着眼,梳理国内外控制碳排放的相关制度实践,提出构建碳排放总量控制制度的“目标分解→出台政策→实施行动→评估调整”全流程管理和要素,并提出各个环节的具体建议：(1)目标分解采用“区域和行业分解相结合”的模式,将发电等纳入碳市场行业的重点排放单位按行业分解和管控,其他排放源（包括一般排放企业、建筑、交通等）按区域分解和管控;(2)政策工具要匹配责任主体的管理模式和排放源的减排重点,发挥不同责任主体间的协同作用,避免重复管理;(3)要建设相应的数据核算和支撑体系,并形成评估反馈和调整机制。     

1.5℃温升目标下中国碳排放路径研究

《巴黎协定》提出1.5℃目标以及中国2060年前达到碳中和的目标背景下,为研究实现1.5℃目标的技术路径,构建了综合性的能源-经济-环境系统模型,研究中国在2℃情景基础上实现1.5℃目标的额外减排要求、部门贡献和关键减排措施.结果显示,1.5℃情景要求到2050年CO2排放量减少到6亿t.一次能源消费总量2045年达峰...     

IPCC AR6报告解读：气候治理政策的新视角及对我国的启示

2022年4月,IPCC发布了第六次评估报告（AR6）第三工作组报告（WGIII）,指出当前全球气候治理行动与目标尚存巨大差距,亟待立即行动,推动经济、社会、科技全系统的深刻和全面变革。气候治理与经济社会发展、公共治理广泛交互,政策体系的设计需要更加注重多维度、多层级、多目标政策工具的交互,推动法律与规划、国家行动与城市等次国家行动、规制性政策与经济性政策、直接控排政策与间接气候政策间的协同,实现更全面、深入的低碳转型。为此,需优化政策供给,在明确长期变革愿景的基础上,强化气候治理对环境健康、经济增长等其他发展目标的溢出效应、关注气候治理对社会分配的影响、加强社会观念引导和广泛参与,有助于最大化综合效应、最小化行动阻力,为气候治理构建良好的政策环境。对我国而言,面对“双碳”目标的严峻挑战,亟待做好碳市场与其他关键政策节点衔接;鼓励、引导各地因地制宜自主行动深化低碳转型,强化国家支持和区域间协同;深入探索以低碳转型驱动高质量发展的协同路径;并从推动落实区域协调发展战略的角度,优化减排、增汇、负碳长期路径。通过跨系统、跨部门、多层级政策协同,构建经济社会、生态环境和气候治理等协同发展的新格...     

成熟森林生态系统土壤有机碳积累:实现碳中和目标的一条重要途径

为了应对全球气候变化带来的挑战,2020年9月中国提出努力争取在2060年前实现碳中和。对此,生态系统固碳被寄予厚望;然而,生态学理论认为,成熟生态系统的碳输入输出趋于平衡,没有碳的净积累,也就没有碳汇功能,而未成熟的生态系统虽有碳的净积累并具有碳汇功能,但自然界任何未成熟生态系统从它建立的时候开始都在不断地向成熟生态系统演替,即任一生态系统演替的最终结果必然是碳输入输出达到平衡状态。由于森林生态系统碳库是陆地生态系统中最大的碳库,所以人们对其在碳中和上的贡献充满期待。本文以森林生态系统为例,分别考虑森林生态系统碳库的生物量碳库和土壤有机碳库,并基于全球最新研究成果,论证了森林生态系统土壤碳库积累过程具有长久的固碳功能,且不违背成熟生态系统碳输入输出趋于平衡的生态学理论,它能为实现碳中和目标做出贡献。     

A Chinese commitment to commit: can it break the negotiation stall?

Preparatory talks to the next round of negotiations seem to indicate that a comprehensive agreement to mitigate climate change will not be easily attainable, despite the intentions of the US administration and the high expectations surrounding the Copenhagen meeting. One key reason is to what extent fast growing economies, and especially China, should take actions to reduce their growth of emissions. This paper argues that a turning point for international negotiations on climate change could be achieved if China were to agree on carbon obligations in the future. Results from modelling work suggest that the optimal investment behaviour is to anticipate the implementation of a climate policy by roughly 10 years, and that thus future commitments—if credible—could lead to significantly earlier steps towards carbon mitigation. If fast growing economies, and foremost China, believe in the long term objective of global stabilization of carbon concentrations, it might be economically rationale to sign on future targets, provided developed countries take on immediate action. Such a provision could be beneficial for both the developing and developed world.     

Managing carbon-intensive materials in a decarbonizing world without a global price on carbon

Emissions from the production of iron and steel could constitute a significant share of a 2°C global emissions budget (around 19% under the IEA 2DS scenario). They need to be reduced, and this could be difficult under nationally based climate policy approaches. We compare a new set of nationally based modelling (the Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project) with best practice and technical limit benchmarks for iron and steel and cement emissions. We find that 2050 emissions from iron and steel and cement production represent an average 0.28?tCO₂ per capita in nationally based modelling results, very close to the technical limit benchmark of 0.21?tCO₂ per capita, and over 2.5 times lower than the best practice benchmark of 0.72?tCO₂ per capita. This suggests that national projections may be overly optimistic about achievable emissions reductions in the absence of global carbon pricing and an international research and development effort to develop low emissions technologies for emissions-intensive products. We also find that equal per capita emissions targets, often the basis of proposals for how global emissions budgets should be allocated, would be inadequate without global emissions trading. These results show that a nationally based global climate policy framework, as has been confirmed in the Paris Agreement, could lead to risks of overshooting global emissions targets for some countries and carbon leakage. Tailored approaches such as border taxes, sectoral emissions trading or carbon taxes, and consumption-based carbon pricing can help, but each faces difficulties. Ultimately, global efforts are needed to improve technology and material efficiency in emissions-intensive commodities manufacturing and use. Those efforts could be supported by technology standards and a globally coordinated R&D effort, and strengthened by the adoption of global emissions budgets for emissions-intensive traded goods.

Policy relevance

This article presents new empirical findings on global iron and steel and cement production in a low-carbon world economy, demonstrates the risks associated with a nationally based global climate policy framework as has been confirmed in the Paris Agreement, and analyses policy options to deal with those risks.     

德国能源转型进程及对中国的启示

总结发达国家能源转型过程中的经验和教训,对中国推动能源转型和实现“双碳”目标具有重要意义。文中回顾了中国和德国电力结构的演变进程,阐述了中国和德国能源转型的机制,并以2022年3月19日为例,分析了德国电力系统灵活性调节的经验。研究表明,健全的法律体系为德国能源转型提供了重要保障,“煤炭委员会”和相关财政支持有效解决了煤电转型过程中的问题,电力市场化是发展可再生主体新型电力系统的重要前提,风力和光伏发电精准预测与管理是可再生能源消纳的关键,煤电和互联互通的欧洲电网是当前德国电力供给的重要保障,过于激进的退煤去核战略是造成2022年德国能源危机的重要原因。最后,从法律保障、市场改革和可再生能源预测与管理等方面提出了中国能源转型的政策建议。     

Incorporating blue carbon sequestration benefits into sub-national climate policies

The emissions reduction pledges made by individual countries through the 2015 Paris Agreement represent the current global commitment to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions in the face of the enduring climate crisis. Natural lands carbon sequestration and storage are critical for successful pathways to global decarbonization (i.e., as a negative emissions technology). Coastal vegetated habitats maintain carbon sequestration rates exceeding forest sequestration rates on a per unit area basis by nearly two orders of magnitude. These blue carbon habitats and their associated carbon sequestration benefits are vulnerable to losses from land-use change and sea-level rise. Incorporation of blue carbon habitats in climate change policy is one strategy for both maintaining these habitats and conserving significant carbon sequestration capabilities. Previous policy assessments have found the potential for incorporation of coastal carbon sequestration in national-level policies, yet there has – to date – been little inclusion of blue carbon in the national-scale implementation of Paris commitments. Recently, sub-national jurisdictions have gained attention as models for pathways to decarbonization. However, few previous studies have examined sub-national level policy opportunities for operationalizing blue carbon into climate decision-making. California is uniquely poised to integrate benefits from blue carbon into its coastal planning and management and its suite of climate mitigation policies. Here, we evaluated legal authorities and policy contexts addressing sequestration specifically from blue carbon habitats. We synthesized the progressive action in California’s approaches to mitigate carbon emissions including statutory, regulatory, and non-regulatory opportunities to incorporate blue carbon ecosystem service information into state- and local-level management decisions. To illustrate how actionable blue carbon information can be produced for use in decision-making, we conducted a spatial analysis of blue carbon sequestration in several locations in California across multiple agencies and management contexts. We found that the average market values of carbon sequestration services in 2100 ranged from $7,730 to $44,000 per hectare and that the social cost of carbon sequestration value was 1.3 to 2.7 times the market value. We also demonstrated that restoration of small areas with high sequestration rates can be comparable to the sequestration of existing marshes. Our results illustrate how accessible information about carbon sequestration in coastal habitats can be directly incorporated into existing policy frameworks at the sub-national scale. The incorporation of blue carbon sequestration benefits into sub-national climate policies can serve as a model for the development of future policy approaches for negative emissions technologies, with consequences for the success of the Paris Agreement and science-based decarbonization by mid-century.     

National contributions to climate change mitigation from agriculture: allocating a global target

Globally, agriculture and related land use change contributed about 17% of the world’s anthropogenic GHG emissions in 2010 (8.4 GtCO₂e yr^?1), making GHG mitigation in the agriculture sector critical to meeting the Paris Agreement’s 2°C goal. This article proposes a range of country-level targets for mitigation of agricultural emissions by allocating a global target according to five approaches to effort-sharing for climate change mitigation: responsibility, capability, equality, responsibility-capability-need and equal cumulative per capita emissions. Allocating mitigation targets according to responsibility for total historical emissions or capability to mitigate assigned large targets for agricultural emission reductions to North America, Europe and China. Targets based on responsibility for historical agricultural emissions resulted in a relatively even distribution of targets among countries and regions. Meanwhile, targets based on equal future agricultural emissions per capita or equal per capita cumulative emissions assigned very large mitigation targets to countries with large agricultural economies, while allowing some densely populated countries to increase agricultural emissions. There is no single ‘correct’ framework for allocating a global mitigation goal. Instead, using these approaches as a set provides a transparent, scientific basis for countries to inform and help assess the significance of their commitments to reducing emissions from the agriculture sector.

Key policy insights

• Meeting the Paris Agreement 2°C goal will require global mitigation of agricultural non-CO₂ emissions of approximately 1 GtCO₂e yr^?1 by 2030.

• Allocating this 1 GtCO₂e yr^?1 according to various effort-sharing approaches, it is found that countries will need to mitigate agricultural business-as-usual emissions in 2030 by a median of 10%. Targets vary widely with criteria used for allocation.

• The targets calculated here are in line with the ambition of the few countries (primarily in Africa) that included mitigation targets for the agriculture sector in their (Intended) Nationally Determined Contributions.

• For agriculture to contribute to meeting the 2°C or 1.5°C targets, countries will need to be ambitious in pursuing emission reductions. Technology development and transfer will be particularly important.

     

Convergence of per capita carbon dioxide emissions: implications and meta-analysis

There is a rich empirical literature testing whether per capita carbon dioxide emissions tend to converge over time and across countries. This article provides a meta-analysis of the results from this research, and discusses how carbon emissions convergence may be understood in, for instance, the presence of international knowledge spillovers and policy convergence. The results display evidence of either divergence or persistent gaps at the global level, but convergence of per capita carbon dioxide emissions between richer industrialized countries. However, the results appear sensitive to the choice of data sample and choice of convergence concept, e.g. stochastic convergence versus β-convergence. Moreover, peer-reviewed studies have a higher likelihood of reporting convergence in carbon dioxide emissions compared to non-refereed work.

POLICY RELEVANCE

The empirical basis for an egalitarian rule of equal emissions per capita in the design of global climate agreements is not solid; this supports the need to move beyond single allocation rules, and increase knowledge about the impacts of combined scenarios. However, even in the context of the 2015 Paris Agreement with its emphasis on voluntary contributions and ‘national circumstances’, different equity-based principles could serve as useful points of reference for how the remaining carbon budget should be allocated.     

International reductions of greenhouse-gas emissions: An equitable and efficient approach

A strategy for a successful climate protection convention must highlight the role of equity in order to bring more nations to the bargaining table. The authors propose two commercial energy protocols for consideration by negotiators in this light. The first links international trading in greenhouse-gas emission ‘rights’ to a country's historical per capita carbon emissions. The charge for these rights should be based on the negotiated reduction in global emissions and the demand for them, via the marketplace. The second requires inefficient countries to make steady improvements in energy efficiency or fuel substitution away from carbon as their economies develop.