Celebrating the Release of GCAM-China-v8 to Support China’s National Climate Assessment

On April 12, 2026, the Center for Global Sustainability at the University of Maryland, Peking University and Tsinghua University celebrated the release of GCAM-China-v8. This update introduces a series of new features, including harmonization with the latest global GCAM v8.2 framework, updating the base year to 2021, introducing a provincial-level water supply and demand module, disaggregating coal power plants based on historical vintage years. Additionally, it expands analytical depth with technical pathway constraint cases and streamlines user workflows with newly developed auxiliary tools, such as automated scenario data processing into the standard IAMC format, a high-performance computing deployment toolkit, and a comprehensive “1+N” regulatory measure toolbox.

Since its first launch in 2024, GCAM-China has grown rapidly. The model has been downloaded over 3,200 times, with a rapidly growing user community of nearly 900 subscribers. To support this expanding base, the community has organized multiple training sessions tailored for early-career researchers. The model’s open-source nature has substantially accelerated its adoption, application, and ongoing advancement. Importantly, this thriving modeling community is directly supporting the development of the national scenario database for the Fifth National Climate Assessment Report of China (NCA5-China).

GCAM-China is available at https://github.com/umd-cgs/gcam-china/releases