Abstract
Now that many large emitting countries have set goals for reaching zero
emissions in this century at the COP26, it is important to clarify the
role of each country in achieving the 1.5°C target of the Paris
Agreement. Here, we evaluated China’s role by calculating the global
temperature impacts caused by different national emission pathways to
zero emissions in the future. Our results showed that China’s
contribution to global warming in 2050 is 0.17°C on average, with a
range of 0.1°C to 0.22°C. Specifically, the peak contributions of these
pathways vary from 0.1°C to 0.23°C, with the years reached distributing
between 2036 and 2065. The large difference in peak temperature arises
from the differences in emission pathways of carbon dioxide (CO2),
methane (CH4), and sulfur dioxide (SO2). We further analyzed the effect
of the different mix of CO2 and CH4 mitigation trajectories from China’s
pathways on the global mean temperature. We found that near-term CH4
mitigation reduces the peak temperature in the mid-century, whereas it
plays a less important role in determining the end-of-the-century
contribution to reaching the global temperature warming goal of 1.5°C.
The most effective way to shave the peak temperature would be early CH4
mitigation action, further contributing to reducing the temperature
overshoot along the way toward the 1.5°C target.