Junting Zhong, Xiaoye Zhang, Zhang Da, Deying Wang, Lifeng Guo, Hantang Peng, Xiaodan Huang, Zhili Wang, Yadong Lei, Yixiong Lu, Chenfei Qu, Xiliang Zhang, Changhong Miao

Due to sizeable anthropogenic CO2 emissions, China’s transition towards carbon neutrality will fundamentally alter global CO2 emissions, providing critical insights into warming levels, extreme events, overshoot, tipping points, and regional climate impacts. Existing emission scenarios that fail to reflect this transition increasingly diverge from reality. To bridge this gap, we developed an interdisciplinary and multi-model framework that integrates up-to-date emissions inventory and emissions pathway to net zero CO2 by 2060 for China, and then constructed a reality-aligned, sector-specific combined scenario (SSP2-com) for greenhouse gases and air pollutants across global-to-regional, national-to-provincial, and multi-resolution-grid scales. Our emissions pathway sees that global CO₂ will peak in concentration by 2062, and achieve net zero in emissions by 2072. The Asia-Pacific region, particularly China, will lead these reductions through contributions from the energy and industrial sectors. Climate emulators show global temperatures will initially follow SSP2-4.5 but later become more compatible with SSP1-2.6 trends, projected to peak around 2071 and reach a rise of 2.01°C by 2100 (~3.2 W m-2) or for the period 2091-2110, with temperatures falling below 2°C in the first decade after 2100, relevant to the Paris Agreement target. We further propose an evolving SSP2-com+ framework, integrating updated regional and national emission trajectories, to align with commitments more timely and enhance global cooperation. Our findings indicate that balanced, nationally-determined decarbonization efforts can stabilize warming around 2°C without requiring early unprecedented decarbonization rates or large-scale carbon removal efforts. These strategies align more closely with current emission status and national commitments than other existing scenarios, providing a more plausible basis for earth system models.