Recently, Yang Guanglei, the postdoctoral fellow of LUSM published his research result "China's ambitious-low-carbon goals require following city-level renewable energy transitions" as the first author in iScience, a Cell Press Journal. The collaborators include Professor Zhang Guoxing of the School of Management (the first corresponding author), Cao Dongqin, Ph.D. student and Professor Cha Donglan of the College of Economics and Management, Nanjing University of Aeronautic, and Professor Su Bin of the National University of Singapore.

It is understood that this achievement is the first research paper published by LUSM faculty as the first author and the School as the first author affiliation in a Cell Press Journal, which shows the continuous growth and improvement of the scientific research level and international academic influence of the School. The research was supported by the key program and the key special program of NSFC, as well as the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation.

The study innovatively compiled the urban energy balance table containing renewable energy consumption data, breaking through the limitations of the previous lack of energy consumption data at the urban level. In the study, the team used a computational modeling technique to calculate the renewable energy transition of 279 Chinese cities from 2005 to 2019, which investigated for the first time the historical contribution and the prospective trajectory (from 2020 to 2030) of CO₂ emissions reduction of China’s city-level renewable energy transition. The study found that the role of city-level renewable energy transition in historical carbon reduction is relatively limited, and without additional policy interventions and technological breakthroughs, China will miss the 2030 carbon peak target. However, the CO₂ emissions reduction of city-level renewable energy transition will significantly increase in the policy constraint scenario and in the technology breakthrough scenario, and the 2030 carbon peak target will likely be reached in both these scenarios. Finally, the carbon emission reduction potential of renewable energy transition in different cities is calculated, which provides empirical evidence for future urban energy transition and carbon emission reduction policies.

This research paper is a breakthrough achievement made by Professor Zhang Guoxing and his team in the CNS journals after Nat. Scientific Data. In recent years, focusing on energy and environmental management, environmental regulation policies and other research fields, Professor Zhang Guoxing's team has published more than 30 papers in authoritative journals at home and abroad, such as Scientific Data, iScience, Energy Economics, Journal of Environment Management, Energy Policy, Journal of Management Sciences in China, Chinese Journal of Management Science, etc. In addition, since 2020, the research projects of Professor Zhang's team have been supported by national key projects of NSFC and NSSFC.

Link of article: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2023.106263

iScience

Cell is one of the three top journals in the world, alongside Science and Nature. iScience is a comprehensive journal from Cell Press, advocating interdisciplinary research and promoting the development of its research fields, mainly publishing innovative original research in the life, physical, earth, and health sciences.