Low-carbon energy policies benefit climate change mitigation and air pollutant reduction in megacities: An empirical examination of Shenzhen, China

The low-carbon transformation of energy system has great significance for megacities to mitigate climate change, which brings co-benefits to improve urban air quality. Taking China's megacity, Shenzhen, as an example, this study examines the potential of wide-ranging energy policies in urban GHG emission reduction and the associated synergistic effect on decreasing major air pollutant emissions. Based on the low emissions analysis platform (LEAP) model, the major results show that an effective implementation of newly emerging energy policies could help cap GHG emissions of Shenzhen in 2025 and nearly halve them by 2035, which would contribute substantially to reducing urban air pollutant emissions. At the sectoral level, the synergistic effect of emission reduction would be the strongest in the transportation sector, followed by the electricity and manufacturing sectors, while it is not significant in the building sector. Moreover, all policies on energy efficiency improvement and demand management that reduce fossil energy consumption show synergistic effects on decreasing air pollutants, while policies on energy structural optimization show differentiated impacts across SO₂, NOx, VOCs, and PM_2.5. Urban managers should prioritize energy policies with strong synergistic effects and specifically promote the wide application of rooftop PV system and deep electrification of road transportation.