The paper is the result of the natural resource comprehensive survey engineering.

Objective Global warming has challenged the international community in the modern world. Carbon neutralization and green and low-carbon transformation as an essential role in facing this challenge has been reaching a global consensus. Earth system science provides an important solution for the realization of the goal of carbon neutralization. How to find the main direction and working methods is an urgent problem to solve in geological survey related with the carbon neutralization strategy in Northwest China.

Methods This paper summarizes the main geological methods in the process of carbon neutralization, and statistically analyses geological resources in Northwest China related with two main methods of carbon neutralization including emission decreasing and sink increasing, and provides suggestions for geological survey to serve green and low- carbon transformation.

Results Northwest China is rich in clean energy such as natural gas and geothermal energy, as well as key minerals and other natural resources related to new energy. Among them, the geological natural gas resources are about 313991 × 10⁸ m³, accounting for about 34.78% of the country. Geothermal energy is widely distributed and rich in types. Especially in Qinghai Province, the total amount of conservative and static dry hot rock resources in the depth range of 3- 6 km in Gonghe basin is 8974.74×10¹⁸ J. The key mineral resources related to clean energy such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and uranium in Northwest China rank among the top in China with lithium and cobalt reserves accounting for about 60% and 40% of the national reserves. Xinjiang is the largest uranium production base in China. Furthermore, there are abundant ecological types, surface matrix types, and a large number of high-quality spaces suitable for carbon capture, Utilization and storage site selection and geological energy storage to increase the carbon pool and sink in Northwest China. Northwest China is the important node to achieve the goal of carbon neutralization through the method of increasing carbon sink.

Conclusions Northwest China can provide effective resource support for carbon emission reduction and carbon sink increase. Geological survey in Northwest China should be based on reality and give full play to its professional advantages in promoting survey of natural gas resources, exploring technology of geothermal resources development, strengthening research on the whole life cycle of key minerals, piloting comprehensive surface matrix ecological geology survey, conducting CCUS-related underground space survey, and build earth system science database for carbon neutral, we will continue to make efforts to provide important geological solutions and make due contributions to the realization of carbon neutral goals.