Global transportation energy transition pathways towards carbon neutrality

doi:10.12006/j.issn.1673-1719.2022.184

Abstract

Abstract:

The Paris Agreement proposed to control the global temperature rise within 2℃ at the end of the 21st century and strive to control it within 1.5℃. To this end, as of November 2021, more than 140 countries had proposed or were considering to propose carbon neutrality targets, covering 90% of global emissions. This fully reflects the ambition of these countries to reduce emissions in depth under the new climate governance system. As an important final energy consumption sector, the transportation sector plays an important role for all regions towards carbon neutrality targets. In this paper, the Global Multi-regional Energy Transition and Carbon Neutrality Analysis Model (GTIMES 2.0), which was developed and used to explore the transition pathways of the transportation energy towards carbon neutrality. Results show that carbon neutrality requires profound transitions in the global transportation energy system. Transportation carbon emissions will peak at 8.5 billion t in 2030 and drop to 2.7 billion t in 2050. Meanwhile, electricity and hydrogen will account for more than 60% of transportation energy in 2050. The road transportation will still be the biggest carbon emissions source in the future and the proportion of aviation will increase significantly because of the rapid growth of demands and the difficulty of decarbonization. Transportation carbon emissions in 11 of the 31 regions/countries, including European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan, Korea etc., have already peaked in 2018, while China, the “the Belt and Road” countries, India, etc., will peak around or after 2030. In 2050, the transportation carbon emissions of 23 regions/countries will decrease by more than 50% compared with 2018 with Brazil and Japan approaching net zero, while India even higher than 2018.

Key words: Energy system model, Energy transition, Carbon neutrality, Low-carbon transportation development

LI Dan-Yang, CHEN Wen-Ying. Global transportation energy transition pathways towards carbon neutrality[J]. Climate Change Research, 2023, 19(2): 203-212.

Figures/Tables 9

Table 1 Codes of regions in GTIMES 2.0

Table 2 Types of transportation energy technologies in GTIMES 2.0

Table 3 Energy related carbon emissions targets of each region in NDC?Zero scenario in 2030 and 2050

Fig. 1 Global transportation energy consumption and carbon emissions towards carbon neutrally targets

Fig. 2 Electricity and hydrogen proportion of transportation energy consumption towards carbon neutrally targets in each region

Fig. 3 Relative changes of peak and 2050 transportation carbon emissions in 2018 for each region towards carbon neutrally targets

Fig. 4 Transportation energy consumption by modes in some regions towards carbon neutrally targets

Fig. 5 Transportation energy consumption by fuels in some regions towards carbon neutrally targets

Fig. 6 Transportation carbon emissions by modes in some regions towards carbon neutrally targets

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