Assessment of Climate-Energy-Air-Health Co-benefits and Trade-offs of CO₂ Sequestration Technologies in China

CO₂ sequestration technologies (CSTs) allow for increased CO₂ emissions without exceeding a chosen temperature limit by creating additional carbon budgets. While these technologies offer low-cost routes to net-zero emissions (i.e., CST benefits), they impede progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (i.e., CST disbenefits). Focusing on China, we assess both the disbenefits and benefits of CSTs across the climate-energy-air-health cascade using an integrated modeling framework. We show that CSTs can save 4.98–15.65 trillion CNY in achieving net-zero emissions but compromise sustainability in non-fossil energy penetration, air quality, and public health improvement, resulting in a total loss of up to 7.82 trillion CNY during 2020–2060. Given the high likelihood of large-scale CST deployment in the future, pursuing policy coherence to balance trade-offs between disbenefits and benefits is vital. To that end, CSTs should be prioritized in the power sector, and stringent end-of-pipe equipment should be retrofitted in non-power sectors before CST allocation.