Greenhouse gas consequences of the China dual credit policy

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 11; no. 1; p. 5212
• Main Authors: He, Xin, Ou, Shiqi, Gan, Yu, Lu, Zifeng, Przesmitzki, Steven Victor, Bouchard, Jessey Lee, Sui, Lang, Amer, Amer Ahmad, Lin, Zhenhong, Yu, Rujie, Zhou, Yan, Wang, Michael
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 15.10.2020; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 704/106/694/2786; 704/106/694/682; climate-change mitigation; ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; Humanities and Social Sciences; multidisciplinary; projection and prediction; Science; Science (multidisciplinary)
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-19036-w

For over ten years, China has been the largest vehicle market in the world. In order to address energy security and air quality concerns, China issued the Dual Credit policy to improve vehicle efficiency and accelerate New Energy Vehicle adoption. In this paper, a market-penetration model is combined with a vehicle fleet model to assess implications on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and energy demand. Here we use this integrated modeling framework to study several scenarios, including hypothetical policy tweaks, oil price, battery cost and charging infrastructure for the Chinese passenger vehicle fleet. The model shows that the total GHGs of the Chinese passenger vehicle fleet are expected to peak in 2032 under the Dual Credit policy. A significant reduction in GHG emissions is possible if more efficient internal combustion engines continue to be part of the technology mix in the short term with more New Energy Vehicle penetration in the long term. China issued the Dual Credit policy to improve vehicle efficiency and accelerate new energy vehicle adoption. Here the authors show that the total Greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) of the Chinese passenger vehicle fleet are expected to peak in 2032 and a significant reduction in GHG emissions is possible by optimizing the Dual Credit policy.