Assessment of carbon emissions and reduction potential in China's copper smelting industry

As the largest producer and consumer of copper, China is facing enormous challenges from carbon peaking and neutrality. This article adopts “bottom-up” and “top-down” methods to construct a more accurate model, to predict the CO₂ emissions of China's copper smelting industry, and explores its potential for carbon reduction in the future from three scenarios as the baseline scenario (BAU), the general low-carbon (NLC), and the enhanced low-carbon (ELC). The results show that the CO₂ emissions can achieve a peak in 2028 either in NLC or ELC scenarios, with a peak range of 14.9–16.88 million tonnes. Prior to reaching the peak, the contributions of energy adjustment, material substitution, and process selection to carbon reduction have significantly improved, and the contribution rates increased from 30.91%, 4.11%, and 1.46% to 42.7%, 32.07%, and 15.63% in ELC scenario. After the peak, the contribution of energy adjustment gradually slows down, while the material substitution continues to increase, and the contribution rates increased from 21.25% and 32.07% to 29.38% and 40.01% in NLC and ELC scenarios. In the future, concentrate oxygen-enriched bottom-blowing smelting and direct refining from waste copper anode furnaces show ideal potential for carbon reduction before 2025, increasing the proportion of recycled copper production, and adjusting energy structure will be more effective from 2025 to 2035. The conclusions of this study can provide a scientific basis for formulating policy recommendations for green and low-carbon development of the copper industry in China and all over the world in the future.