The carbon budget of China: 1980–2021

As one of the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gases, China has set itself the ambitious goal of achieving carbon peaking and carbon neutrality. Therefore, it is crucial to quantify the magnitude and trend of sources and sinks of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂), and to monitor China's progress toward these goals. Using state-of-the-art datasets and models, this study comprehensively estimated the anthropogenic CO₂ emissions from energy, industrial processes and product use, and waste along with natural sources and sinks of CO₂ for all of China during 1980-2021. To recognize the differences among various methods of estimating greenhouse emissions, the estimates are compared with China's National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (NGHGIs) for 1994, 2005, 2010, 2012, and 2014. Anthropogenic CO₂ emissions in China have increased by 7.39 times from 1980 to 12.77 Gt CO₂ a^-1 in 2021. While benefiting from ecological projects (e.g., Three Norths Shelter Forest System Project), the land carbon sink in China has reached 1.65 Gt CO₂ a^-1 averaged through 2010-2021, which is almost 15.81 times that of the carbon sink in the 1980s. On average, China's terrestrial ecosystems offset 14.69% ± 2.49% of anthropogenic CO₂ emissions through 2010-2021. Two provincial-level administrative regions of China, Xizang and Qinghai, have achieved carbon neutrality according to our estimates, but nearly half of the administrative regions of China have terrestrial carbon sink offsets of less than 10% of anthropogenic CO₂ emissions. This study indicated a high level of consistency between NGHGIs and various datasets used for estimating fossil CO₂ emissions, but found notable differences for land carbon sinks. Future estimates of the terrestrial carbon sinks of NGHGIs urgently need to be verified with process-based models which integrate the comprehensive carbon cycle processes.