Exploring the carbon neutrality pathway in the aluminum industry from the perspective of energy-environment-economy: A case study of Henan Province, China

Abstract

As the world's largest producer and consumer of aluminum, China's aluminum industry is facing enormous pressure to achieve the “Dual carbon” target. Exploring the carbon neutrality pathway for the aluminum sector at the provincial level is critical for achieving China's carbon neutrality target by 2060. This study established a GHG emissions inventory for Henan's aluminum industry (HAI) and analyzed the emission characteristics by LMDI method and Tapio model. Meanwhile, an integrated Energy-Environment-Economy analysis framework was constructed to explore the potential carbon neutrality pathway. The results showed that the total GHG emissions exhibited a trend of initially increasing and then falling over the past 17 years, driven primarily by product output effect and energy intensity effect, and the relationship between GHG emissions and the economy has not been completely decoupled in Henan. Scenario analysis indicated that comprehensive scenario with CCUS has the most significant emission reduction potential, achieving an 84 % reduction compared to business-as-usual scenario. However, GHG emissions are projected to remain at 5.47 Mt CO₂-eq by 2060, indicating that the aluminum industry is a hard-to-decarbonize sector, so more positive development and practical application should be accelerated. In the short term, clean power improvement and energy efficiency improvement should be prioritized. In the long term, recycled aluminum utilization improvement shows greater mitigation potential, which also shows better economic benefits. Finally, recommendations were proposed for carbon neutrality pathway for HAI.