A scenario analysis of oil and gas consumption in China to 2030 considering the peak CO2 emission constraint

Abstract

China is now beginning its 13th five-year guideline. As the top CO2 emitter, China has recently submitted the intended nationally determined contributions and made the commitment to start reducing its total carbon emissions in or before 2030. In this study, a bottom-up energy system model is built and applied to analyze the energy (mainly coal, oil, and gas) consumption and carbon emissions in China up to 2030. The results show that, the total energy consumption will reach a peak of 58.1 billion tonnes of standard coal and the CO2 emissions will get to 105.8 billion tonnes. Moreover, in the mitigation scenario, proportion of natural gas consumption will increase by 7 % in 2020 and 10 % in 2030, respectively. In the transportation sector, gasoline and diesel consumption will gradually decrease, while the consumption of natural gas in 2030 will increase by 2.7 times compared to the reference scenario. Moreover, with the promotion of electric cars, the transport electricity consumption will increase 3.1 times in 2030 compared to the reference scenario. In order to fulfill the emission peaking target, efforts should be made from both the final demand sectors and oil and gas production industries, to help adjust the energy structure and ensure the oil and gas supply in future.