The role of energy efficiency improvement and energy substitution in achieving China's carbon intensity target

Energy efficiency improvement and energy substitution are not only main ways to reduce energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions in China, but also play important roles in achieving China's international commitments and coping with the challenges of global climate change. From the beginning of the 11th Five-Year Plan (FYP), China has adopted a series of policies and measures in ways of improving energy efficiency, optimizing energy structure, developing low-carbon city pilots and so forth. This study takes use of the China-in-Global Energy Model to analyze the future carbon dioxide emissions and energy consumption under different scenarios, and then calculates the contributions of energy efficiency improvement and energy substitution to realizing the mitigation target of China's National Determined Contributions. The results show that energy efficiency improvement plays more important role in reducing carbon intensity than energy substitution. But as time goes on, the contribution of energy substitution will increase while the effect of energy efficiency improvement will diminish gradually. In addition, energy substitution can play a greater role in achieving China's climate pledge when increasing the strength of carbon emissions reduction. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.