Estimating the greenhouse gas emissions of cold chain infrastructure in China from 2021 to 2060

Cold chain infrastructure is vital in the modern food system, yet the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of cold warehouse construction and operation are unclear. This article fills the gap by presenting an environmental modeling study to estimate the future trajectory of GHG emissions of cold warehouses in China from 2021 to 2060. A hybrid analysis is used to estimate the potential GHG emissions over time, using environmental input-output analysis (EIO) for construction and process-based analysis for operation. We analyzed five scenarios: cleaner refrigerants (CR), cleaner electricity sources (CE), higher energy efficiency (HE), cleaner cold warehouses (CCW), and a business as usual (BAU) scenario. The results show the trend of GHG emissions in all scenarios and reveal the effectiveness of these measures, with cleaner electricity sources and higher energy efficiency having stronger impacts than introducing cleaner refrigerants on reducing GHG emissions. Another key finding is that electricity consumption during cold warehouse operation is responsible for over 85% of total emissions in 40 years in all scenarios.