Global EditionASIA 中文双语Français
Europe

China's great green path

By Lan Lan | China Daily Europe | Updated: 2015-07-03 07:21
Share
Share - WeChat

The nation's ambitious climate action plan for 2030 is expected to open up opportunities for private investment

China announced a series of objectives for cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 on June 30 as Premier Li Keqiang met with French President Francois Hollande in Paris.

The announcement sparked wide discussion about how much investment the post-2020 climate action plan would drive over the next 16 years.

Zhang Yong, vice-chairman of China's National Development and Reform Commission, says investment in renewable energy and addressing climate change will grow "substantially".

"Such large-scale investment will need to be accelerated in both the public and private sectors," Zhang said on the sidelines of a forum in late June.

The government is working on specialized plans for the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20), and promotion of renewable energy, energy efficiency and environmental protection will be highlighted in these plans, he says.

It has been estimated that in the next 16 years, China's cumulative investment in improved energy efficiency, promoting nonfossil fuels and developing low-carbon technologies will exceed 40 trillion yuan ($6.4 trillion; 5.8 euros), according to the National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation, China's top climate think tank.

"These frontiers account for less than 4 percent of China's current GDP, but the contribution is expected to increase to 8 percent by 2020 and 16 percent by 2030," says Li Junfeng, director of the climate change center.

To reach the goal of increasing nonfossil fuels in primary energy consumption to about 20 percent by 2030, China needs to increase nuclear power capacity by 100 million kilowatts, hydropower capacity by 150 million KW, solar capacity by 300 million KW and wind power capacity by 400 million KW between 2016 and 2030, according to the think tank.

China's annual power generation from nonfossil fuels is expected to reach 4 trillion kilowatt-hours by 2030, which is equal to the annual electricity generation of the United States.

Also by 2030, China's use of nonfossil fuel is expected to equal 1.2 billion metric tons of standard coal, which is equal to two times Japan's total energy consumption, Li says.

He Jiankun, director of the Institute of Low Carbon Economy at Tsinghua University, says the renewable energy target would be equivalent to installing 10 5-megawatt wind turbines a day or 10 1-million-KW nuclear power units annually between 2020 and 2030.

"Such a size and pace for renewable energy growth is unprecedented globally," he says. "China faces a tougher challenge than the developed countries to achieve the series of targets because it is in a different stage of development."

Most developed countries maintained an economic growth rate of between 2 and 3 percent when their emissions peaked. The US, for example, reached its carbon emissions peak in 2005, and Japan in 2007. Since China is expected to maintain a growth rate of 4 to 5 percent near 2030, it will have to keep its carbon emissions per unit of GDP lower than what the developed countries did to reach their emissions peak.

If China can determine how to provide for adequate low-carbon growth, it will provide a model for other developing countries, experts say.

China's energy structure has gradually changed against the backdrop of economic adjustment and efforts to reduce fossil fuel use. For the first time in the past 14 years, China's coal consumption fell in 2014.

An annual statistical review of world energy released by Britain-based energy giant BP Plc showed that China's coal output decreased 2.6 percent last year.

"A single year's figure is not sufficient to predict that China's coal consumption will continue to fall this year or in the next, but coal use has entered a steady status and will be on track to fall after the 13th Five-Year Plan," He says.

Adnan Amin, director general of the Abu Dhabi-based International Renewable Energy Agency, says the public sector cannot be the single primary source for realizing the energy transformation for all countries.

The government should make efforts to create a good investment environment and map out policy frameworks to help lower the costs and increase the profits of private investors, he says.

lanlan@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily European Weekly 07/03/2015 page25)

Today's Top News

Editor's picks

Most Viewed

Top
BACK TO THE TOP
English
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online 0108263

Registration Number: 130349
FOLLOW US