In response to the global climate crisis, some countries and regions have established green trade "carbon barriers" that leverage their advantages in carbon emissions accounting and certification to curtail exports of Chinese products. Facing these emerging challenges, China needs to refine its carbon accounting system to contribute to an equitable and cooperative global climate governance and trade system. This study aims to improve China's carbon accounting system. It summarizes the essence and construction progress of the carbon accounting system, introduces the accounting and reporting requirements of international green trade mechanisms, and employs comparative analysis to examine the differences between China's carbon market, the European Union's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, and the "Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 concerning batteries and waste batteries" in terms of accounting boundaries, methodologies, and data support and quality assurance systems. The findings indicate that while China's carbon market aligns with international green trade mechanisms in terms of accounting methodologies, it lags significantly in its carbon footprint system as well as data support and quality assurance systems. These gaps mean that Chinese export-oriented enterprises struggle to overcome these carbon barriers with the current accounting system, potentially hindering the development of emerging industries. The study suggests that China should adhere to its fundamental stance of opposing unfair green trade barriers and take specific measures to improve the carbon accounting system: (1) enhancing the product-level carbon accounting system, (2) establishing a credible platform for emission factor data, (3) bolstering research support from academic institutions, (4) reinforcing data security management, and (5) improving the carbon accounting and reporting capabilities of affected enterprises.

Vigorously developing new energy sources is an important approach to achieving the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals. However, the randomness, volatility, and intermittency of new energy pose severe challenges to the supply-demand balance and stability of the electric power system. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop diversified flexible resources to guarantee the system's safe and stable operation. This study summarizes the electricity demand and the power structure development pathways in China under the carbon neutrality goal. Based on this, it analyzes the different flexibility demands of electric power systems with different proportions of wind and solar power generation capacities and elaborates on the characteristics of various types of flexible resources needed for power generation, transmission, load, and storage from four aspects: peak capacity (adequacy), ramping flexibility, stability, and inertia. Drawing from the international experience regarding flexible resource development, we propose the principles for flexible resource development: supply security guarantee, low-carbon development, and economic optimization. Considering the existing problems in the flexible resource development in China, we propose a flexible resource development pathway that aligns with the emission reduction goal of the power sector and the medium- to long-term development trend of the electric power structure of China. Furthermore, key initiatives to ensure the development of flexible resources are proposed from five aspects: power source, power grid, load, energy storage, and market mechanism.

The power grid CO₂ emission factor is a critical parameter for accurately calculating indirect emissions from the electricity consumption side, serving as a core indicator for precisely quantifying the CO₂ emission pathways at the consumption side. This study explores the temporal and spatial characteristics of the province-level power-grid CO₂ emission factors from 2020 to 2035 and compares them with official-source factors. Moreover, it integrates historical direct-emission data to accurately quantify the importance of indirect emissions from the electricity consumption side. Additionally, it predicts the province-level indirect emissions and emission pathways under different scenarios from 2020 to 2035, quantifying the impacts of power grid CO₂ emission factors with distinct temporal and spatial accuracies on provincial emission pathways. The results indicate that: (1) from 2020 to 2035, the power grid CO₂ emission factors of all provinces are expected to exhibit sustained decreasing trends, and there are disparities between the existing publicly available power-grid CO₂ emission factors and provincial levels in the study. (2) From 2010 to 2020, the indirect emissions from electricity consumption and their proportions in net electricity-importing provinces had gradually increased, with Beijing, Shanghai, and Zhejiang province having the largest proportions. (3) Under Scenarios 1 (constant power-grid CO₂ emission factors on the national level) and 3 (constant power-grid CO₂ emission factors on the provincial level), the indirect emissions from electricity consumption and total emissions of all provinces will be significantly higher than the estimated results in Scenarios 2 (dynamic power-grid CO₂ emission factor on the national level) and 4 (dynamic power-grid CO₂ emission factor on the provincial level). The estimation results of Scenarios 1 and 2 are projected to differ significantly from those of Scenarios 3 and 4. For provinces with large proportions of indirect emissions from electricity consumption, such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangdong, selecting power grid CO₂ emission factors with different spatial accuracies is expected to have noticeable impacts on their total emissions, further leading to shifts in their peaking years. The research results can provide a reference for supporting the planning of carbon peaking pathways in various provinces and reducing the uncertainty in indirect emission forecasts.

To promote the development and application of continuous monitoring technologies for CO₂ emissions from thermal power plants in China and support the establishment of a carbon emission statistics and accounting system in the country, this study analyzes the international experience in the continuous monitoring of CO₂ emissions from thermal power plants using literature research, expert discussion, and technical interpretation, with a focus on the United States and the European Union. The analysis covers eight aspects: types of units applying the technology, formulation of implementation standards, measures for dealing with failures, selection of monitoring technologies, research on key technologies, support for the low-carbon development of thermal power plants, verification of monitoring reports, and evaluation of measurement accuracy. Drawing on international beneficial experience and considering the current status of continuous monitoring of CO₂ emissions from thermal power plants in China, the study proposes the following suggestions: (1) formulating supporting policies and regulations while considering the characteristics of technology application and the actual situation of thermal power plants in China, (2) accelerating the improvement in technical implementation standards and specifications to enhance the guiding and supporting role of standards, (3) strengthening the statistical analysis of the measurements using existing flue gas flow meters to provide references for relevant work, (4) enhancing research on flue gas flow measurement in thermal power plants to improve the technical level of continuous monitoring of CO₂ emissions, (5) promoting the application of digital technologies in the verification of monitoring reports to support closed-loop management of continuous monitoring of CO₂ emissions, and (6) improving the evaluation standards system for measurement accuracy of continuous emission monitoring systems to enhance the international recognition of China's carbon emission data.

The global wind energy industry is expected to expand in the context of carbon neutralization. Meanwhile, with the continuous improvement in carbon reduction tools such as carbon market and carbon tariffs, the carbon footprint of renewable energy may impact the cost and development of wind power in the future. Taking China, Europe, and the United States as the research object, this study constructs the lifecycle evaluation process and list of onshore wind power systems, conducts parameter comparison regarding the carbon footprint of onshore wind power in relevant regions, and summarizes the change trends. Moreover, it analyzes the cause of the trend and clarifies the influencing factors. The results indicate that the carbon footprint of onshore wind power shows a downward trend in the aforementioned regions from 2011 to 2022 owing to the large-scale wind turbines, improved generation efficiency, and cleanliness of industrial production. Specifically, the average decrease in China, Europe, and the United States was 49.2%, 46.2%, and 20.8%, respectively, and the decrease was concentrated in the equipment production stage. China has reduced its carbon footprint to a level close to Europe, and its gap with the United States has been reduced to 3.63 g/kW·h. However, China still lags behind Europe and the United States in terms of industrial production cleanliness and fan capacity factor, respectively. In the process of promoting industrial development, China should further promote the power generation efficiency of its wind power system, improve the cleanliness of industrial production, and support the recycling of decommissioned wind power systems, so as to steadily reduce the carbon footprints within the lifecycle of onshore wind power systems.

Energy decarbonization is essential for achieving carbon neutrality. To facilitate the low-carbon transition of the energy system, extensive utilization of low-carbon energy technologies is crucial across various sectors, including primary energy supply, energy processing and conversion, and end-use consumption. This study provides a comprehensive overview of the current status and future trends of key energy utilization technologies from the perspective of low-carbon energy system analysis and optimization. We analyze the application prospects and layout challenges of energy utilization technologies in China's path toward carbon neutrality from multiple dimensions. Our study highlights the following points: Wind and solar energy, as the fastest-growing renewable energy sources, will continue to play a crucial role in energy supply. The utilization of biomass resources requires systematic evaluation of different conversion technologies, optimizing the allocation of biomass resources across industries. Utilization technologies of secondary energies such as hydrogen and energy storage face challenges related to materials, performance, and lifespan. Overcoming these technical bottlenecks is necessary to achieve low-cost and scalable system applications. Future end-use energy utilization technologies will focus on electrification, which depends on the secure and stable transformation and expansion of electricity distribution systems. Achieving low-carbon transformation in the energy system requires balancing the coordinated development of different energy technologies while addressing non-technical factors such as market dynamics, institutional frameworks, and societal acceptance, ultimately accelerating the decarbonization process.

Considering the dual requirements of stability and low carbon, integrating clean coal power with carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) and combining new energy power generation with energy storage have become the inevitable trends of China's power industry. This study investigates the typical cases regarding clean coal power, CCUS, new energy power generation, and energy storage in China and abroad, analyzing the trend of technological development. A levelling cost model is used to measure the economical efficiency and changes of "clean coal power + CCUS" in three stages: current stage, technological breakthroughs, and commercial application. The competitiveness of "clean coal power + CCUS" is evaluated by comparing it with the "new energy + energy storage" mode from three dimensions: economical efficiency, stability, and security. The results indicate that technological breakthroughs and commercialization of CCUS will reduce the cost of "clean coal power + CCUS" by 30.3%-77.6%. When the cost of CCUS is lower than 550 CNY/t CO₂, "clean coal power + CCUS" is more competitive than the "new energy + energy storage" mode. When the cost of CCUS is lower than 150 CNY/t CO₂, the cost of "clean coal power + CCUS" will be lower than that of "new energy + energy storage". Moreover, advantageous technical routes and application scenarios of "clean coal power + CCUS" are calculated and analyzed based on the competitiveness and synergy of "clean coal power + CCUS" and "new energy + energy storage". The breakthrough directions and technical path of zero-carbon clean coal power are proposed from the aspects of improving the complementarity of clean coal power, enhancing the competitiveness of "clean coal power + CCUS", and promoting the optimal combination of coal power and new energy. Furthermore, the following suggestions are proposed to promote the development of low-carbon clean coal: (1) clarifying the preferential technology route, (2) strengthening the research and development of transformative and disruptive technologies, (3) improving the peak shaving capability of clean coal-fired power units, (4) promoting the coupling and coordinated development of coal-fired power and new energy, and (5) establishing a high-end composite talent support system.