Biophysical and economic constraints on China’s natural climate solutions

Nan Lu, Hanqin Tian, Bojie Fu (), Huiqian Yu, Shilong Piao, Shiyin Chen, Ya Li, Xiaoyong Li, Mengyu Wang, Zidong Li, Lu Zhang, Philippe Ciais and Pete Smith
Additional contact information
Nan Lu: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Hanqin Tian: Boston College
Bojie Fu: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Huiqian Yu: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Shilong Piao: Peking University
Shiyin Chen: Beijing Normal University
Ya Li: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Xiaoyong Li: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Mengyu Wang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Zidong Li: Beijing Normal University
Lu Zhang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Philippe Ciais: Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement, CEA CNRS UVSQ
Pete Smith: University of Aberdeen

Nature Climate Change, 2022, vol. 12, issue 9, 847-853

Abstract: Abstract Natural climate solutions (NCS) are strategies for climate mitigation in the land sector that increase carbon storage or avoid GHG emissions. Here we estimate China’s historic NCS mitigation at 0.6 (0.5–0.7) PgCO2e yr−1 (95% CI) during 2000–2020 (8% of fossil CO2 emissions in the contemporary period). Through new NCS activities, the future maximum potential for NCS is projected at 0.6 (0.3–1.0) PgCO2e yr−1 (6% of fossil CO2 emissions) during 2020–2030 and 1.0 (0.6–1.4) PgCO2e yr−1 during 2020–2060. Of the future NCS potentials, 26–31%, 62–65% and 90–91% can be achieved at mitigation costs of US$10, US$50 and US$100 (MgCO2e)−1, respectively. Thus, NCS can contribute substantially to China’s Nationally Determined Contributions over the next 10 to 40 years but require a national strategy to reach climate goals and ensure co-benefits for people and nature.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01432-3 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcli:v:12:y:2022:i:9:d:10.1038_s41558-022-01432-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nclimate/

DOI: 10.1038/s41558-022-01432-3

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Climate Change is currently edited by Bronwyn Wake

More articles in Nature Climate Change from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().