China's achievement of carbon neutrality is crucial for meeting the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C target, making the optimization of emission reduction strategies a key priority in addressing climate change. While existing research has proposed various carbon neutrality policies, the synergistic interactions and feedback mechanisms between these policies remain underexplored. To address this gap, this study employs a dynamic Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model of China's energy economy to construct a policy domain encompassing four types of emission reduction policies and 1,295 reduction scenarios. Through a scenario analysis framework, we reveal the synergistic interaction mechanisms among carbon reduction policies and their impacts on achieving the carbon neutrality goal.

Our findings indicate that counteractive effects between policies will make China's pathway to carbon neutrality more challenging than anticipated: the number of viable carbon neutrality scenarios is reduced by approximately five-sixths, and the timeline for achievement is delayed by 5–6 years. Promoting the coordinated implementation of renewable energy and electrification policies can effectively enhance emission reduction efficiency. In contrast, the combination of carbon pricing and renewable energy policies exhibits the most significant counteractive effects, substantially diminishing mitigation outcomes and amplifying economic losses. This study underscores the critical importance of considering policy synergies in emission reduction planning and provides valuable insights for formulating effective carbon reduction strategies in China and other nations.

Carbon neutral path