The contribution of China’s emissions to global climate forcing (original) (raw)

Nature volume 531, pages 357–361 (2016) Cite this article

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Abstract

Knowledge of the contribution that individual countries have made to global radiative forcing is important to the implementation of the agreement on “common but differentiated responsibilities” reached by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Over the past three decades, China has experienced rapid economic development[1](/articles/nature17165#ref-CR1 "National Bureau of Statistics of China. Gross Domestic Product Index Since 1978 http://data.stats.gov.cn/english/easyquery.htm?cn=C01

             (see ‘National Accounts’ for GDP) (2014)"), accompanied by increased emission of greenhouse gases, ozone precursors and aerosols[2](/articles/nature17165#ref-CR2 "Boden, T. A., Marland, G. & Andres, R. J. Global, Regional, and National Fossil-Fuel CO 2 Emissions
              http://dx.doi.org/10.3334/CDIAC/00001_V2013
              
             (Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, US DOE, 2013)"),[3](/articles/nature17165#ref-CR3 "Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) Release version 4.2, 
              http://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu
              
             (European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, 2011)"), but the magnitude of the associated radiative forcing has remained unclear. Here we use a global coupled biogeochemistry–climate model[4](/articles/nature17165#ref-CR4 "Gasser, T. Attribution Régionalisée des Causes Anthropiques du Changement Climatique
              https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01135456
              
            , PhD thesis, Univ. Pierre et Marie Curie (2014)"),[5](/articles/nature17165#ref-CR5 "Cherubini, F., Gasser, T., Bright, R. M., Ciais, P. & Stromman, A. H. Linearity between temperature peak and bioenergy CO2 emission rates. Nature Clim. Change 4, 983–987 (2014)") and a chemistry and transport model[6](/articles/nature17165#ref-CR6 "Hauglustaine, D. A. et al. Interactive chemistry in the Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique general circulation model: description and background tropospheric chemistry evaluation. J. Geophys. Res. 109, D04314 (2004)") to quantify China’s present-day contribution to global radiative forcing due to well-mixed greenhouse gases, short-lived atmospheric climate forcers and land-use-induced regional surface albedo changes. We find that China contributes 10% ± 4% of the current global radiative forcing. China’s relative contribution to the positive (warming) component of global radiative forcing, mainly induced by well-mixed greenhouse gases and black carbon aerosols, is 12% ± 2%. Its relative contribution to the negative (cooling) component is 15% ± 6%, dominated by the effect of sulfate and nitrate aerosols. China’s strongest contributions are 0.16 ± 0.02 watts per square metre for CO2 from fossil fuel burning, 0.13 ± 0.05 watts per square metre for CH4, −0.11 ± 0.05 watts per square metre for sulfate aerosols, and 0.09 ± 0.06 watts per square metre for black carbon aerosols. China’s eventual goal of improving air quality will result in changes in radiative forcing in the coming years: a reduction of sulfur dioxide emissions would drive a faster future warming, unless offset by larger reductions of radiative forcing from well-mixed greenhouse gases and black carbon.

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Figure 1: Attribution of present-day global RF and its components to China.

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Figure 2: Historical time series of China’s absolute and relative contributions to the RF of WMGHGs.

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Figure 3: Spatial distribution of RFs from China-induced SLCFs.

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Figure 4: Recent decadal trends of China’s contributions to the global RF and its components.

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Acknowledgements

We thank M. Schulz for help with Supplementary Fig. 7, and H. Yu for sharing data from ref. 24. This study is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 41371443, 41390240) and the 111 project (grant number B14001). It is also part of the ACACCYA project funded by the GIS Climat-Environnement-Société. T.G. is supported by the European Research Council Synergy grant ERC-2013-SyG-610028 IMBALANCE-P.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China
    Bengang Li, Shilong Piao, Shu Tao, Zhuo Chen, Mengtian Huang, Yue Li, Hongyan Liu, Junfeng Liu, Shushi Peng, Zehao Shen, Zhenzhong Sun, Guodong Yin, Hui Zeng, Zhenzhong Zeng & Feng Zhou
  2. Jiangsu Center for Collaborative Innovation in Geographical Information Resource Development and Application, Nanjing, 210023, China
    Bengang Li
  3. Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement, CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, Gif-sur-Yvette, 91191, France
    Thomas Gasser, Philippe Ciais, Yves Balkanski, Didier Hauglustaine, Juan-Pablo Boisier, Rong Wang, Tao Wang & Yi Yin
  4. Centre International de Recherche en Environnement et Développement, CNRS-PontsParisTech-EHESS-AgroParisTech-CIRAD, Nogent-sur-Marne, 94736, France
    Thomas Gasser
  5. Key Laboratory of Alpine Ecology and Biodiversity, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Center for Excellence in Tibetan Earth Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100085, China
    Shilong Piao
  6. Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique, CNRS, Université Pierre et, Marie Curie—Paris 6, Paris, 75252, France
    Laurent Zhaoxin Li

Authors

  1. Bengang Li
  2. Thomas Gasser
  3. Philippe Ciais
  4. Shilong Piao
  5. Shu Tao
  6. Yves Balkanski
  7. Didier Hauglustaine
  8. Juan-Pablo Boisier
  9. Zhuo Chen
  10. Mengtian Huang
  11. Laurent Zhaoxin Li
  12. Yue Li
  13. Hongyan Liu
  14. Junfeng Liu
  15. Shushi Peng
  16. Zehao Shen
  17. Zhenzhong Sun
  18. Rong Wang
  19. Tao Wang
  20. Guodong Yin
  21. Yi Yin
  22. Hui Zeng
  23. Zhenzhong Zeng
  24. Feng Zhou

Contributions

B.L., T.G., P.C., S. Piao and S.T. designed the study. Simulations and output analysis were performed by T.G. for OSCAR and the overall integration; by D.H., R.W. and Y.B. for LMDz-INCA; by J.-P.B. and L.Z.L. for LUC albedo reconstructions; by Y.B. for black carbon albedo; by Z.C. and Y.B. for secondary organic aerosols; and by B.L., T.G., D.H. and R.W. for model evaluation. B.L., S. Peng, Y.Y. and F.Z. provided additional data and analysis. Writing was led by B.L., with substantial inputs from T.G., P.C., S. Piao, S.T., Y.B., D.H. and R.W. All authors participated in the study, the interpretation of the results, and the outline of the paper, through regular meetings and discussion over the past three years.

Corresponding author

Correspondence toBengang Li.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information (download PDF )

This file contains a Supplementary Discussion, Supplementary Methods, additional references, Supplementary Tables 1-2 and Supplementary Figures 1-9. (PDF 3695 kb)

Supplementary Data (download ZIP )

This zipped file contains the source code of OSCAR, used to estimate China’s contribution to WMGHGs and to perform the overall integration and uncertainty analysis, along with any input data used in this study. (ZIP 19740 kb)

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Li, B., Gasser, T., Ciais, P. et al. The contribution of China’s emissions to global climate forcing.Nature 531, 357–361 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature17165

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Editorial Summary

China's impact on the global climate system

Rapid industrialization is often thought to have increased China's impact on the climate system, but the magnitude of the change has remained stubbornly difficult to quantify. Bengang Li et al. use biogeochemical and atmospheric models, combined with a suite of observational data sets, to provide sectoral estimates, with uncertainties. They find that China is responsible for about 10% of the global increase in radiative forcing (essentially, the additional warming) since pre-industrial conditions. Carbon dioxode is the single biggest warming factor, but methane and black carbon are also important. Sulfate aerosols provide a strong counteractive effect, and efforts to reduce pollution could have the effect of accelerating China's contribution to radiative forcing, unless simultaneous emission reductions are put into place.

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