Cost and Potential of Circular Economy Measures for CO2 Mitigation in the Textile Industry.

The textile industry is under increasing global pressure to move away from linear production systems, prompting an urgent shift toward a circular economy (CE). The CE framework for CO2 mitigation and the abatement cost curve for China's textile industry was constructed (2023-2030), aiming to evaluate the CO2 mitigation potential and abatement costs of the CE measures. The results show that the CO2 mitigation potential of CE measures in China's textile industry is 57.70 Mt CO2/year, accounting for 18.79% of the total emissions of the textile industry in 2023. Under the assumption that emission reductions can realize their economic value within the carbon emissions trading system, low-cost and high-potential measures represented by second-hand textile trade and mechanical recycle offer a CO2 mitigation potential of 35.09 Mt CO2/year, with an average abatement cost of -44.06 USD/tCO2, representing the most promising direction for promotion in the short term. In contrast, high-cost and low-potential measures are not suitable for large-scale deployment at the current stage. Achieving CO2 reductions in the textile industry through CE requires multidimensional cooperation among policy effectiveness, technological progress, consumer markets, and energy structures.