Economic Impact Analysis Of China’s Carbon Neutrality Path Under Different SSP-RCP Scenarios

The global warming caused by climate change has caused great damage and irreversible loss to the ecological environment,and the economic problems caused by it have gradually aroused people’s attention.As the world’s largest consumer of coal and investor in renewable energy,China plays a pivotal role in global climate governance and sustainability transformation.Its proposed carbon neutral policy is of great significance to the global response to climate change.The implementation of the carbon neutrality target will affect the restructuring and reorganization of China’s industrial chain and energy structure,and it is crucial to scientifically assess its socio-economic impact and emission reduction effect.Integrated Assessment Models play an important role in assessing climate governance policies.Most of the current integrated assessment models do not portray the industrial structure in detail,while the CGE model,which includes all processes of the socio-economic system,has a better application in this area.Therefore,this paper develops an extended version of the well-known DICE model,MERICES model,incorporates energy into the production function,establishes an independent CGE model of energy economy in China,and constructs an integrated assessment model,EMRICES-E(Expanded Multi-Regional Intergated model of Climate and Economy System-Energy),which contains economic system,carbon cycle system,and climate feedback modules.In terms of scenario setting,based on the Cobb-Douglas economic forecast model,this paper simulated and realized the changes of China’s industrial structure under different shared social economic paths.Based on this,combined with the RCP scenario,this paper subdivides energy types into five categories: coal,oil,crude oil,natural gas and electricity,and analyzes the impact of the carbon neutral path on China’s energy consumption structure,industrial structure,macroeconomy and global warming through the change of energy consumption to achieve the carbon neutrality target.The main conclusions of this paper are as follows:(1)To achieve the carbon neutrality target in 2060,China needs to continuously promote the optimization of energy structure,promote the increasing share of electricity and the decreasing share of fossil energy such as coal and oil in the energy structure,and the earlier the carbon neutrality target is achieved,the better the optimization and adjustment of energy structure.Under the carbon neutral path,the share of electricity in China’s energy consumption structure will be 45.96% in 2030,further increase to68.34% in 2050,and reach over 70% in 2060.(2)The achievement of carbon neutrality is conducive to the optimization and adjustment of industrial structure,promoting the increase of the share of tertiary industries,mainly information technology and services,in the industrial structure and the decoupling of economic development from carbon emissions,and the earlier carbon neutrality is achieved,the better it is to accelerate the upgrading of industrial structure.Carbon emission reduction has a greater negative effect on traditional fossil energy sources such as coal and oil,and therefore also reduces the share of energy-intensive industries in the industrial structure,while IT and service-oriented industrial sectors are less affected.The achievement of China’s carbon neutrality target relies mainly on the massive emission reduction of energy industries and energy-intensive industries,which will reduce 6672.61 and 2005.74 MMT,respectively,between 2015 and 2060 under the carbon neutrality pathway.(3)The implementation of China’s carbon neutrality target will cost a certain amount of emission reduction in the short term,but the implementation of the emission reduction target will force the industry to green upgrade and optimize the energy structure,thus helping China’s economy to achieve green and sustainable development and generate economic benefits in the later stage of the simulation.Global warming will also have a negative impact on China’s economic development,and the economic loss will gradually become larger over time,and the proportion of economic loss in total economic output will gradually increase with the number of simulation periods.Under different scenarios,the economic losses from global warming show a trend of slow increase followed by a rapid increase,with the share of about3% in 2030 and further increasing to more than 7% in 2060.By industry,the industries most affected by warming are energy industries and energy-intensive industries.(4)China’s achievement of the carbon neutrality target makes an important contribution to global climate change.The earlier the carbon neutrality target is achieved,the better it is for controlling global warming,and China’s achievement of carbon neutrality under the SSP5-8.5 scenario contributes 0.12°C to the world’s achievement of the IPCC temperature control target.Under all scenarios,global warming exceeds 1.5°C in 2034 and 2°C by 2053.Even under the SSP1-2.6 low forcing scenario,in which countries around the world follow a low-carbon development path,it is still difficult to achieve the IPCC’s 2°C temperature control target,requiring countries to develop more stringent and effective carbon reduction programs.