China's pledge to reach carbon neutrality by 2060 is ambitious and could provide the world with much-needed leadership on how to achieve a +1.5 degC warming target above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. But the pathways that would achieve net zero by 2060 are still unclear including the dependence on negative emissions technologies. Here, we use the Global Change Analysis Model (GCAM 5.3), a dynamic-recursive, technology-rich integrated assessment model, to simulate how negative emissions technologies, in general, and direct air capture (DAC) , in particular, will contribute to China's meeting this target. Our results show that , for China to be net-zero in 2060, it would need to deploy negative emissions technologies (NETs) at very large scales, on the order of 2.5 GtCO2 negative emissions per year with up to 1.5 GtCO2 per year of that coming from DAC. DAC, like other forms of negative emissions , such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage and afforestation is an emerging technology that has not been demonstrated at a commercial scale . Deploying NETs at this scale will have widespread impacts on financial systems and resources availability such as water, land, and energy in China and beyond .
China's pledge to reach carbon neutrality before 2060 is an ambitious goal and could provide the world with much-needed leadership on how to limit warming to +1.5 C warming above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. But the pathways that would achieve net zero by 2060 are still unclear , including the role of negative emissions technologies. We use the Global Change Analysis Model to simulate how negative emissions technologies, in general, and direct air capture (DAC) in particular, could contribute to China's meeting this target. Our results show that negative emissions could play a large role, offsetting on the order of 3 GtCO2 per year from difficult-to-mitigate sectors such as freight transportation and heavy industry. This includes up to a 1.6 GtCO2 per year contribution from DAC , constituting up to 60\% of total projected negative emissions in China. But DAC, like bioenergy with carbon capture and storage and afforestation , has not yet been demonstrated at anywhere approaching the scales required to meaningfully contribute to climate mitigation . Deploying NETs at these scales will have widespread impacts on financial systems and natural resources such as water, land, and energy in China .
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