Bridging national climate targets and firm-level decisions: An agent-based model of China's steel decarbonization pathways.
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- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 42258732.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1073/pnas.2528009123.
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Abstract
China's steel sector is pivotal to national and global climate goals, yet decarbonization is constrained by entrenched coal-based processes and regional disparities. Top-down and bottom-up models often neglect firm-level heterogeneity and behavioral dynamics. Here, we develop an agent-based model linking policy signals-carbon caps, pollution standards, and resource limits-with firm-level investment decisions. We evaluate four scenarios combining current and strengthened climate and air targets with neutral or accelerated technology progress. All scenarios achieve deep CO<sub>2</sub> reductions (90 to 95% by 2060), but only the integrated policy-plus- technology pathway eliminates blast furnaces before midcentury, achieving the steepest declines. Policy- or technology-only pathways entail trade-offs, including lock-in to carbon capture and storage or delayed reductions. Our results show that synchronizing stringent climate policy with rapid technology cost declines is essential to steer China's steel industry toward a carbon-neutral trajectory.