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) PgCO(2)e 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) PgCO(2)e yr(-1) (6% of fossil CO2 emissions) during 2020-2030 and 1.0 (0.6-1.4) PgCO(2)e 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 (MgCO(2)e)(-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.
Managing natural systems to mitigation climate change is a key strategy for limiting warming. In China, such natural climate solutions could offset 6% of CO2 emissions during 2020-2030, contributing to mitigation goals but highlighting the importance of emissions reductions.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 847-853 |
Number of pages | 16 |
Journal | Nature Climate Change |
Volume | 12 |
Issue number | 9 |
Early online date | 18 Aug 2022 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Sept 2022 |
Bibliographical note
AcknowledgementsB.F. and N.L. acknowledge financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41991230) and the National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFA0604700); H.T. acknowledges funding support from the National Science Foundation of the United States (grant no. 1903722) and Andrew Carnegie Fellowship Program (grant no. G-F-19-56910).
Data Availability Statement
Data availabilityThe base map is available from National Earth System Science Data Center, National Science and Technology Infrastructure of China (http://www.geodata.cn). All data generated or analysed during this study are provided with data sources in the Supplementary Information.
Code availability
We acknowledge the ArcMap Software version 10.6 (https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/arcgis-desktop/resources), R Software Foundation version R x64 4.0.3 (https://mirrors.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/CRAN/) and Python Software Foundation: Python Language Reference, version 3.7.7 (http://www.python.org).
Keywords
- ECOSYSTEM SERVICES
- SOCIAL COST
- CARBON