Situation and measures of China’s CO₂ emission mitigation after the Paris Agreement

Abstract

Global response to climate change has entered the phase of full implementation of the Paris Agreement. To control the global temperature rise below 2°C, all countries must make more efforts to reduce emission. China has combined its goal of emission reduction for combating climate change with its domestic sustainable development strategy to promote energy revolution and the transition of economic development to low-carbon patterns. Through reinforcing the commitment and action before 2020, the CO₂ intensity of GDP can decrease by more than 50% by 2020 compared with that of 2005, and the external commitment target of a 40%–45% decrease can be over fulfilled. Currently, under the new economic normal, China further strengthens the policy measure, vigorously saves energy, enhances energy use efficiency and the economic output benefit, and simultaneously develops new and renewable energy and accelerates energy structural decarbonization, so that the annual decrease rate of the CO₂ intensity of GDP keeps a high level of more than 4% and remains increasing. Thus, the decrease rate of the CO₂ intensity of GDP will exceed the GDP growth rate, and then CO₂ emission will peak around 2030. This will promote the fundamental turning of economic development mode, and lay a foundation for the establishment of a sustainable energy system with near-zero emissions and with new and renewable energy as the main body in the second half of this century. China implements the concept of green low-carbon development and accelerates the low carbon transition of energy and economy to achieve win-win results in economic growth and CO₂ emission mitigation, and these policies and actions will also provide experiences for many other developing countries. On the other hand, China will continue to play a positive and constructive leading role in the implementation of the Paris Agreement internationally, and promote the construction of new mechanisms of win-win cooperation, fairness and justice and common development for global climate governance. Moreover, China will make an effort to build a community of common destiny for mankind, promote pragmatic cooperation among countries, especially among developing countries, and take combating climate change as a new development opportunity for jointly moving toward climate-friendly low-carbon economic development path.

Keywords

climate change / the Paris Agreement / energy revolution / NDC (national determined contribution) goals

Introduction

At present, the global response to climate change enters the stage of full implementation of the Paris Agreement. The 2018 KATOWICE Climate Conference in Poland will complete negotiations on the details of the implementation of the Agreement and conduct a facilitative dialog among the Parties. The reinforcement of commitments and actions by 2020 was also included in the agenda. While making efforts to promote the implementation of the Paris Agreement and the process of global cooperation, China will also further strengthen domestic action to implement its NDC (national determined contribution) goals under the Agreement, and will strengthen “South-South cooperation” with developing countries so as to make new contributions to the protection of the earth’s ecological security.

The Paris Agreement established a new institutional framework for global climate governance after 2020. Guided by the goal of controlling global temperature rise not to exceed 2°C and striving to control it at 1.5°C, the Agreement is based on the Parties’ “bottom-up” NDC goals and action plans of the Parties, and supported by voluntary cooperation of all Parties, and is a legally binding agreement for all Parties [¹]. However, current NDC emission reduction target of the Parties is not sufficient enough to meet the requirement of the below 2°C emission reduction path, and there is a huge gap. Slow action will pose an urgent threat to eco-security of the planet and the action will be more costly in the future; therefore all Parties should strengthen efforts in emission reduction [²,³]. The facilitative dialog at 2018 climate conference will, in a “storytelling” manner, encourage all countries to strengthen their commitments and actions in emission reduction, including those by 2020, in order to guarantee the achievement of controlling global temperature rise no more than 2°C.

Climate change endangers the eco-security of the earth and the survival and development of human society. Therefore, it is for the common interest of mankind to cooperate in tackling climate change. Judging from the atmosphere and process of Bonn Climate Conference, the announcement of the withdrawal of the US from the Paris Agreement has not had much negative impact on the process of cooperation in implementing the Agreement as well as the political will and respective actions of countries. Instead of changing their confidence and actions to achieve their NDC goals and advance the process of global cooperation, many countries, local governments, businesses and civil societies have become more enthusiastic about reinforcing actions. The cooperation between China and the US has played an important role in the conclusion, signing and entry into force of the Paris Agreement. Since the US withdrew from the Agreement, its leadership weakens, and all Parties are looking forward to China’s further leading role in promoting the implementation of the Agreement. China advocates the new concept of global governance of win-win cooperation, fairness and justice, common development, and the building of a community of common destiny for mankind, and shows increasing leadership in global cooperation in addressing climate change. In the current process of implementing the Agreement, China will also be deeply involved, strengthening exchanges and coordination with various interest groups in developing and developed countries, and play an active and constructive leading role.

In 2016 the United Nations adopted the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to promote worldwide economic growth and eliminate poverty, to promote social progress and overcome injustice and inequality, and to protect the eco-environment and address climate change. The Paris Agreement also emphasized the inherent link between the impacts of climate change, response actions and equitable access to sustainable development, and the integration of achieving NDC goals and realizing poverty alleviation and sustainable development. Therefore, all countries should take combating climate change as an opportunity for sustainable development, and put realizing 2030 SDGs of the UN and implementing the Agreement in the same framework and deploy them in an integrated manner. Guided by their respective NDC objectives, all countries should promote their economic development on a climate-friendly, low-carbon pathway to achieve the win-win situation of “development” and “carbon reduction.”

China actively implements the strategies to combat climate change, sets ambitious emission reduction targets, and works hard to promote the low-carbon transition of energy and economy. These actions for addressing climate change are also indispensable for domestic sustainable development. While mitigating CO₂ emissions, there are also synergistic effects of saving resources and energy, improving environment quality and promoting sustainable development, coordinating economic and social development and the bearing capacity of resources and environment. These are all the significant components of China’s eco-civilization construction. The objectives of global response to climate change are in line with the goals of China’s eco-civilization construction and sustainable development. China will take active actions to achieve its NDC goals under the Paris Agreement.

Reinforcing pre-2020 commitments and actions

The Paris Agreement established a new mechanism for global climate governance after 2020. The Copenhagen Climate Conference in 2009, following the Bali Road Map, set quantified emission reduction obligations for developed countries and autonomous emission reduction actions for developing countries in the priority area of sustainable development after 2012 until 2020. The Doha Climate Conference in 2012 adopted the Doha Amendment to the second commitment period of Kyoto Protocol. Strengthening the commitments and actions before 2020 are important in advancing the implementation of the Paris Agreement.

China’s self-determined emission reduction goals at the Copenhagen Climate Conference included decreasing the CO₂ intensity of GDP by 40% – 45% in 2020 compared with 2005, increasing the proportion of non-fossil energy in primary energy to 15% in 2020, and increasing the forest storage by 1.3 × 10⁹ m³ based on the level of 2005. These goals have been decomposed and implemented in the 11th, 12th, and 13th Five-Year Plan (FYP) for national economic and social development.

The goal to decrease the CO₂ intensity of GDP is a goal to coordinate economic growth and CO₂ emission reduction. China is now in the stage of rapid industrialization and urbanization, the economic growth rate is relatively high, and the energy consumption and CO₂ emissions will continue to increase. Therefore, China should make efforts to enhance the output benefit of per unit energy consumption and CO₂ emission, which means significantly reducing the energy intensity and the CO₂ intensity of GDP, in order to promote a win-win situation of economic growth and CO₂ emission reduction.

China entered the stage of rapid development of heavy chemical industry at the beginning of this century. During the 10th FYP period (2001–2005), the energy intensity and the CO₂ intensity of GDP were on the rise. The 11th FYP (2006–2010) emphasized energy saving and pollution reduction, and set a binding target of reducing energy intensity of GDP by 20%, which was basically realized, and as a consequence, the increase trend of energy intensity of GDP during the 10th FYP period was fundamentally reversed [⁴].

The 12th FYP paid special attention to energy saving and carbon reduction, proposing binding targets of a 16% decrease in energy intensity of GDP and a 17% decrease in the CO₂ intensity of GDP as well as safeguards and action plans, which meant greater efforts in energy saving and carbon reduction. Particularly, since entering the new economic normal after 2013, China transferred development momentum, adjusted economic structure, and conducted enterprise transformation and upgrading as well as quality and efficiency promotion. As a result, energy consumption grew slowly and the CO₂ intensity of GDP decreased faster. Actually the energy intensity of GDP decreased by 18% and the CO₂ intensity of GDP decreased by 21% in the 12th FYP period, which exceeded the expected objective in the 12th FYP. In the end of 2016, the CO₂ intensity of GDP fell by about 42% compared with the 2005 level, basically realizing the external committed goal which is 40%–45% decrease [⁴,⁵].

China sets up goals to decrease energy intensity of GDP by 15% and the CO₂ intensity of GDP by 18% in the 13th FYP. Judging from the trend at present, the goals could be overfulfilled. Under the new economic normal, the GDP growth slows down, the energy consumption elasticity decreases, and the growth of energy consumption also slows down. From 2013 to 2016, GDP grew by an annual average rate of 6.9%, and energy consumption increased by an annual average rate of 1.5%.The annual average falling rates of energy intensity and the CO₂ intensity of GDP reached 5.1% and 6.3% respectively [⁴,⁵] in that period, while according to the planned targets of the 13th FYP to respectively decrease energy intensity and the CO₂ intensity by 15% and 18%, it is OK for their annual falling rates to reach 3.2% and 3.9% respectively. As economic growth stabilizes in the coming years, the energy consumption elasticity will rebound, leading to a little increase in the growth rate of energy consumption and CO₂ emission, but there will be no more rapid growth like the situation before 2013. The elasticity of energy consumption averaged 0.59 and 0.46 respectively in the 11th and 12th FYP periods, and it is expected to fall to about 0.35 in the 13th FYP. If GDP growth remains at the expected rate of 6.7%, the energy intensity of GDP will decline by about 18.0% with the annual average falling rate at nearly 4% in the 13th FYP period, and the energy consumption growth rate will also fall to about 2.2% from the respective 6.7% and 3.6% in the 11th and 12th FYP periods.

While the total energy demand growth slows down, new and renewable energy develops fast with the non-fossil energy supply increasing by an annual average rate of about 10%. Therefore, the newly added energy demand can be met by non-fossil energy, and CO₂ emission increase could slow down [¹,²]. The proportion of non-fossil energy in primary energy grows by about 1% each year, and it exceeded 14% at the end of 2017 and reach 16%–17% in 2020. The CO₂ intensity of energy consumption decreased by about 0.53% and 0.91% annually in the 11th and 12th FYP periods respectively, and it could reach around 1.2% annually in the 13th FYP period [⁴,⁵]. Owing to the double decrease of energy intensity of GDP and the CO₂ intensity of energy consumption, the CO₂ intensity of GDP could decrease by about 22%, with an annual decrease rate averaging 5% in the 13th FYP period. Therefore, the CO₂ intensity of GDP could fall by more than 50% in 2020 compared with the 2005 level, and the external committed target of 40%–45% decrease could be overfulfilled. As for the external committed improvement of the proportion of non-fossil energy to 15% and forest volume by 1.3 × 10⁹ m³, they can also be realized between 2018 and 2019. China’s reinforcement of pre-2020 commitment and action in emission reduction as well as the remarkable results will provide Chinese experience for and promote the facili-tative dialog in the 2018 climate conference.

Making efforts to achieve the post-2020 NDC targets under the Paris Agreement

The post-2020 NDC targets China proposed under the Paris Agreement mainly includes decreasing the CO₂ intensity of GDP by 60%–65% in 2030 compared with the 2005 level, improving the non-fossil energy proportion in primary energy consumption to about 20%, and particularly, realizing the peaking of CO₂ emission around 2030 and striving to peak early [⁶]. These targets accord with China’s positioning as a developing country and characteristics of development stage, differ from developed countries’ goals of economy-wide absolute decrease of all greenhouse gas emission, and reflect a big nation’s undertaking of responsibility for global affairs. These targets are ambitious and require great efforts to achieve, and they are also the inner needs to domestically save resources, protect environment, and achieve sustainable development. Therefore, China will actively promote energy and economy low-carbon transition to create a multi-win-win situation including sustainable development, environmental quality improvement, energy security enhancement, and CO₂ emission mitigation.

To achieve the goal of decreasing the CO₂ intensity of GDP by 60% – 65% in 2030 compared with the 2005 level, the annual falling rate of the CO₂ intensity will maintain more than 4%, which surpasses the level for realizing the 40%–45% emission reduction in 2020 and means greater strength in emission reduction. Calculating by developed countries’ NDC targets and expected GDP growth rates, their annual decrease rate of carbon intensity of GDP will not exceed 4%, therefore China’s decrease rate of carbon intensity of GDP is still higher than the level of developed countries and the world.

One way to decrease the CO₂ intensity of GDP, one way is to make efforts to save energy, enhance energy efficiency, and reduce the energy intensity of GDP, and the other is to work hard to develop new and renewable energy, promote energy structural decarbonization, and reduce the CO₂ intensity of energy consumption. In the future, with the promotion of advanced energy saving technology and improvement of energy efficiency, energy consumption elasticity will keep decreasing from 0.59 in the 11th FYP period and 0.46 in the 12th FYP period to below 0.3 by 2030. As GDP growth decreases, the increase rate of energy consumption will keep falling, but the annual decrease of energy intensity of GDP will also shrink. As energy structural decarbonization accelerates, when the proportion of non-fossil fuel in primary energy increases to above 20% in 2030, the CO₂ intensity of energy consumption will decrease by more than 25% compared with the 2005 level, and its falling rate will keep increasing year by year, reaching more than 1.5% by 2030 from 0.53% in the 11th FYP period and 0.91% in the 12th FYP period. That will contribute more to the decrease of the CO₂ intensity of GDP. Therefore, the annual decrease rate of the CO₂ intensity of GDP could reach 4.5%–5.0% around 2030, facilitating the realization or even over fulfillment of the goal of decreasing the intensity by 60%–65% than the 2005 level.

To achieve the peaking of CO₂ emission while ensuring economic sustainable growth, it is necessary to have the falling rate of the CO₂ intensity of GDP exceed the GDP growth rate, so that the reduction of the CO₂ intensity of GDP counterbalances the CO₂ emission increase from GDP growth. Now under the new economic normal, the GDP growth rate maintains at 6.5%–7.0%, but it will keep decreasing after 2020. When industrialization and urbanization are basically completed around 2030, China’s per capita national income will reach that of high-income countries and economic development will tend to interior growth. Besides, the GDP growth will slow down further, and the potential growth rate will fall to about 4%–5% [⁷,⁸], but it is still higher than the that of developed countries and the world average. Therefore, China has to strengthen energy saving and substitution to make the annual decrease rate of the CO₂ intensity of GDP no less than 4.5%–5.0% so as to ensure the achievement of the peaking of CO₂ emission around 2030 or even before 2030.

Due to the emission reduction effect resulted from continuous energy structural decarbonization, the peaking of CO₂ emission will be earlier than the peaking of total primary energy consumption. Another important condition for the peaking of CO₂ emission is to make the annual decrease rate of the CO₂ intensity of energy consumption exceed the annual increase rate of total primary energy consumption, so that the decrease of the CO₂ intensity of energy consumption counterbalances the CO₂ emission increase from energy consumption growth, and CO₂ emission no longer increases or tends to decline. Around 2030, the potential GDP growth rate would be 4.5%–5.0%, the energy consumption elasticity would be less than 0.3, and the growth rate of total energy demand would be below 1.5%. To satisfy the total energy demand increase by non-fossil energy, non-fossil energy supply needs to keep increasing by about 8% annually at that time. In addition, the annual decrease rate of the CO₂ intensity of energy consumption should be more than 1.5% and keep increasing so that CO₂ emission would peak and continue to decline [⁷,⁹,¹⁵].

China’s peaking of CO₂ emission around 2030 is earlier than that of developed countries in terms of development stage. The peaking of CO₂ emission of developed countries is later than their industrialization, when their GDP growth rates are generally lower than 3% and the annual decrease rates of the CO₂ intensity of GDP are no more than 3% [¹⁰]. To achieve the peaking of CO₂ emissions around 2030, China’s annual decrease rate of the CO₂ intensity of GDP need to reach 4.5%–5.0%, and energy saving and structural decarbonization needs to be continuously strengthened. Accelerating the development of new and renewable energy and the decrease of the CO₂ intensity of energy consumption are particularly important for the peaking of CO₂ emission [⁷,⁹].

Achieving the peaking of CO₂ emission around 2030 will be a new turning point and milestone of China’s economic low carbon transition, which indicates that the economy continues to grow but fossil energy consumption no longer increases and GDP growth decouples from CO₂ emission. It also means China has controlled and reduced conventional pollutants including SO₂, NO_x, and dust from the source and promoted the fundamental improvement of domestic environmental quality. China implements the mechanism of “intensity” and “total amount” control of energy consumption and CO₂ emissions during the 13th FYP period, and will carry out the “peaking time” control of CO₂ emissions after 2020. Therefore, from the CO₂ emissions “increment” control to simultaneous control of “increment” and the timetable of “zero growth,” these measures create conditions for the goal-formulation of sustained CO₂ emission reduction in the future.

Strengthening policies and measures for promoting energy and economy low-carbon transition

To facilitate energy and economy low-carbon transition and ensure the achievement of NDC targets, China has formulated and published the Energy Production and Consumption Revolution Strategy 2016–2030. While strengthening the NDC targets, the just mentioned “Strategy” further clarifies focus areas, action plans and policy measures, and conducts forward-looking arrangements. It aims to build clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient energy supply and consumption systems so as to facilitate the establishment of an energy system of near-zero emission pillared by new and renewable energy in the second half of this century.

Promoting energy consumption revolution, vigorously saving energy, and improving energy technological efficiency and economic output benefit

The above mentioned “Strategy” proposed the goal for controlling total primary energy consumption, which is to curb total primary energy consumption below 5 × 10⁹ tce in 2020 and less than 6 × 10⁹ tce in 2030. It proposed to promote energy conservation and decrease energy intensity of GDP via the “intensity” and “total” double-control mechanism [¹¹].

Through vigorous energy saving and industrial structure adjustment, China’s energy intensity of GDP falls rapidly, though being still higher than the level of developed countries. Being about 1.8 times of the world average and 2–4 times of that of developed countries in 2015, it still has space and potential for a big decline. But the gap between China’s technology efficiency of energy transfer and utility is not that big, and is becoming smaller and smaller in recent years. For example, the efficiency of coal-fired power generation has surpassed that of the US and reached the world advanced level. China’s low output efficiency of energy use is mainly due to the industrial structure in the industrialization stage and the level of industrialization. In China, the proportion of industry in GDP is high, and energy consumption of the industrial sector accounts for approximately 64% of the total, while that of developed countries is generally no more than 1/3. Moreover, manufacturing products are at the low end of the international value chain with high energy consumption and low value added. So the high energy intensity of GDP is mainly caused by the above industrial structure and products factors. China’s proportion of secondary industry in GDP has reached or exceeded the peak level of developed countries in industrialization stage, and the output of steel, cement, and household appliances accounts for about half of the world total. Under the new economic normal, the transition of economic development mode, including accelerating the adjustment of economic structure, promoting industrial upgrading, and increasing the rate of value added of products, will be the main driving factor for the rapid decline of energy intensity of GDP. It will make the decreasing rate of the energy intensity per unit value added in the industrial sector higher than the economy-wide average level. The final energy consumption and CO₂ emission of industrial sector are possible to reach the peak in 2020, which facilitates the early realization of national CO₂ emissions peak.

With the development of urbanization, energy consumption and CO₂ emissions of the construction and transportation sectors will increase rapidly, and their proportions in the national final energy consumption and CO₂ emissions respectively will keep increasing. Therefore, China should pay special attention to energy saving and carbon reduction in these two sectors. Beside, China should fully release the energy saving potential of the building sector, improve the energy saving policies for buildings, carry out the 65% energy saving standard for new buildings by 2020, optimize final energy use structure of buildings and improve the share of renewable energy in total primary energy consumption of buildings to 25% in 2020 [¹¹]. Moreover, China should accelerate energy saving and heating metering rebuilding of the existing buildings, implement the energy consumption quota system for public buildings, and more importantly, control the total volume of public and civil buildings. The total energy consumption in the building sector reached about 864 Mtce in 2015, accounting for about 20% of the national total primary energy consumption. Furthermore, China should control the total size of buildings at about 7.5 × 10¹⁰ m² and total primary energy consumption at about 1100 Mtce in the future, and try to realize the peaking of CO₂ emissions in the building sector around 2030 so as to support the achievement of the nation-wide peaking of CO₂ emission [¹²].

China should comprehensively build green low-carbon transportation system, optimize transportation structure, develop low energy consumption transportation modes including railway, urban rail transit and water transportation, and optimize traffic demand management. Besides, China should improve the fuel consumption limit standards for vehicles and ships, optimize fuel composition, develop electric vehicles, and draw up the timetable for the elimination of oil-firing vehicles. Green travel and travel via public transportation should be promoted. Energy consumption in the transportation sector accounted for 12.7% of the national total primary energy consumption and reached 454 Mtce in 2012, in which the proportion of freight was 63%. And the proportion of energy consumption in the transport sector is expected to increase in future, but the share of freight will decline. With appropriate measures, CO₂ emission from the transport sector is possible to peak around 2035 [¹³,¹⁶].

To promote energy consumption revolution, China should attach importance to the change of ideology, establish a frugal consumption view, a low carbon lifestyle and consumption style, lead the new urbanization process, and accelerate the formation of a resource-saving society. Guided by the construction of eco-civilization and low-carbon society, China should also explore a new development mode for ecological city with low carbon characteristics and green living style, and create a new way for ecological and low-carbon urbanization.

Promoting energy supply revolution and accelerating energy structural decarbonization

The above mentioned “Strategy” put forward an action plan for a leapfrog development of non-fossil energy. It proposed to realize the strategic goals of “two 50%” for non-fossil energy, which are to try to increase the proportion of non-fossil energy power in total electricity to 50% in 2030, and to improve the proportion of non-fossil energy supply in primary energy consumption to more than 50% in 2050 [¹¹]. These two goals further strengthen China’s energy transition in terms of speed and intensity. As the substitution of fossil energy with non-fossil fuel accelerates, the proportion of electricity in final energy consumption will keep increasing, and the proportion of primary energy for electricity generation will also continue to increase, which is expected to increase to about 50% by 2030 from 41% at present. If 50% of the electricity comes from non-fossil energy, the proportion of non-fossil energy in primary energy ought to be about 25%, which exceeds the goal (about 20%) China committed under the Paris Agreement.

The proportions of coal, oil, gas and non-fossil fuel in China’s total primary energy consumption were 62.0%, 18.3%, 6.4%, and 13.3% respectively in 2016. Due to the big proportion of coal consumption, China’s CO₂ intensity of energy consumption was about 20% higher than the world average level and 35% higher than that of the EU [⁵,¹⁰]. By 2030 and 2050, the proportion of non-fossil energy in China will exceed 20% and 50% respectively, and that of natural gas will reach about 15% and 20% respectively, while the share of coal will fall to about 45% and 20% respectively [⁴]. After 2030 China’s energy demand increase will slow down further and tend to stabilize, energy structural decarbonization will accelerate, and the annual falling rate of the CO₂ intensity of energy consumption will surpass 2.0%. These will make the CO₂ emission of 2050 less than its peaking level by more than 40%, and lay a foundation for the establishment of the energy system of near-zero emission pillared by new and renewable energy in the second half of this century.

Under the new economic normal, the driver and mode of development change, the energy demand slows down, and the renewable energy develops rapidly. Thus the newly-added energy demand has been mainly met by the increase of non-fossil energy supply. The consumption of raw coal has fallen from 4.3 billion tons in 2013 to 3.8 billion tons in 2016 [⁴], and it may stabilize for some time and then gradually decline in the future. The capacity of coal-fired generators, including those currently in operation and under construction, will basically stabilize at the current level of 1.1 TW. The increase of power demand in the future will be satisfied by new and renewable energy power. In the future with the large proportion of renewable energy, China should strengthen the construction of “Internet+” intelligent energy system, facilitate the deep integration of energy and modern information technology, develop smart grids and distributed renewable energy networks, and ensure the connection to the grid, storage, transmission and distribution of renewable energy power as well as the stable operation of the grid.

China’s non-fossil energy develops fast at present. From 2005 to 2016, non-fossil energy grew at an annual average rate of 10.3%, and its proportion in primary energy consumption increased to 13.3% from 7.4%. Moreover, renewable energy increase accounted for 40% of the world’s total increment over the same period. The installed capacity of hydropower, wind power, and solar power reached 330 GW, 149 GW, and 77 GW respectively at the end of 2016, all ranking first in the world. In 2030, they will respectively surpass 400 GW and the proportion of non-fossil energy power capacity in total power capacity will rise to more than 60% from 36% in 2016. It is expected that China’s newly-added capacity of non-fossil energy would reach about 1 TW from 2015 to 2030, which equals the total capacity of the US at present, and the newly-added investment would exceed 10 trillion CNY. The newly-added investment, capacity and speed of development of China’s new and renewable energy are all among the world’s leading, which creates new economic growing areas for China and promotes China’s economic transition.

For a long time to come, although the proportion of coal will continue to decline and its total consumption amount will decrease, coal will still serve as an important pillar in China’s energy supply system. Thus while accelerating energy substitution, China should also strengthen the clean and efficient use of coal. Besides, China should further improve the generating efficiency of coal-fired power plants, increase the proportion of ultra-low pollutant emission generators, and strengthen the research, development and promotion of clean and efficient technology for coal terminal utilization, especially for bulk coal utilization. In addition, China should develop and demonstrate CO₂ capture and storage (CCS) technology for coal-fired power plants and coal chemical production processes, and take it as a backup technology option for achieving the near-zero emission energy system in the future.

Deepening reform and strengthening technological innovation and system guarantee

Advanced energy technology innovation is the important support for achieving energy system low-carbon transition. China is now leading the world in renewable energy technology and industrialization, so it should popularize the advanced energy technology and efficient energy-saving techniques and transfer the technological advantage to industrial and economic advantage. With the high proportion of renewable energy connecting to the grid in the future, China should develop and promote intelligent energy technology, promote the deep integration of energy internet with distributed energy technology, smart grid technology and energy storage technology, and strengthen the research and development (R&D) and demonstration of the cutting-edge technology of hydrogen energy, nuclear fusion and etc. in order to occupy the commanding point of energy science and technology, build national competitive advantage and conform to and lead the process of global energy technology innovation and development.

To strengthen the R&D and industrialization of advanced energy technology, China should also attach importance to the development of nuclear energy technology and creation of competitive advantage. China has already have a good nuclear energy technology foundation and a sound nuclear industry system. Besides, China’s independent R&D technology is competitive in cost and its newly-built nuclear power plants adopt the nuclear power reactor of the 3rd generation, which is the most advanced and most secure in the world. The installed capacity of nuclear power was 33.64 GW in 2016, and is expected to reach 58 GW in 2020 and 136 GW in 2030. As long as security is ensured, developing nuclear energy is an important technological option for China’s energy low-carbon transition [¹¹].

Deepening reform and promoting energy system revolution is the fundamental guarantee for realizing energy production and consumption revolution. Under the new economic normal, China promotes the new concept of development, transforms the development motive force via innovative development, and shifts economic growth mode with green development, of which the core idea is to promote the harmonious symbiosis between man and nature, and to promote the coordination and sustainable development of economy, society and resources and environment. Combining the construction of eco-civilization system, China further strengthens the institutional guarantee of green and low-carbon development and enhances the legal system and policy system. Besides, China strengthens the goal responsibility of governments at all levels of energy conservation and carbon reduction, and incorporates the energy conservation and carbon reduction targets into national and local five-year development plans. Moreover, China innovates on the energy macro-control system, improves the energy legal system, reforms the policy system of finance and taxation for low carbon development, enhances the price formation mechanism for energy products, and makes the fee system for resources and environment better. Furthermore, China strengthens the energy market system reform to establish a unified and open market system with fairness and effective competition. China should strengthen energy-saving technical standards, product energy-efficiency labeling and the access policy of industries, adopt energy use right and energy saving trading system, and build a national unified carbon trading market. Guided by the medium- and long-term strategy and objective, China combines the market mechanism with various policies including government binding targets, mandatory standards, and fiscal and tax finance measures to improve the system guarantee for energy revolution and low carbon development [⁹,¹¹,¹⁴].

Carbon trade is an important mechanism to achieve the national emission reduction target via market. China will launch a unified national carbon trading market, including the energy intensive industries of power, building materials, iron and steel, and chemical industry and etc. In the urgent situation of global response to climate change, carbon emission space is becoming a scarce resource and an importance factor of production, and the “carbon price” will reflect the economic value of carbon emission quotas. Guided by national emission reduction goals, China will allocate carbon credits to enterprises for free according to the industrial energy efficiency benchmark. Carbon credits will help eliminate backward production capacity, promote industry-wide technological innovation and industrial upgrading, guide social investment and advance enterprise emission reduction. Building carbon market is also an important part of basic capacity and system building for low carbon development. It will effectively promote the regional and enterprise carbon emission statistics, monitoring and verification systems construction, enhance the accuracy and credibility of regional and enterprise data on carbon emission and reduction, and help build China’s own capability for dealing with the development of international emission reduction mechanism and meeting the requirement of transparency [¹⁷].

Actively promoting global climate governance and international cooperation

China has played an important leading role in promoting the conclusion, signing and entry into force of the Paris Agreement, and will continue to make a positive contribution to its implementation. China advocates a new global climate governance mechanism of win-win cooperation, fairness and justice and common development, and the building of a community of common destiny for all mankind. Taking the response to climate change as an important opportunity for all countries to realize sustainable development, China is working for a multi-win-win situation of economic development, social progress, environment protection and climate change mitigation. China also strengthens mutually beneficial cooperation and common development among countries under the premise of protecting the eco-security of the earth and the common interest of all mankind and the principle of fairness and justice. Combining domestic sustainable development goals, China is deeply involved in and plays an active leading role in global cooperation, and has achieved remarkable results in energy saving and carbon reduction and showed a rising influence and leadership in global climate governance. At present, China should make efforts to promote the implementation of the Paris Agreement, showing its undertaking of global responsibilities as a big nation and making positive contributions to global eco-civilization construction [⁹].

Negotiations on the detailed rules and regulations on how to implement the Paris Agreement will be completed on the Katowice climate conference in 2018. Positive progress has been made and a relatively comprehensive and balanced draft text which reflects the views of all Parties has been reached at the Bonn Conference in 2017. The climate conference in 2018 need to reach unanimous expressions of the opinions, reconcile the different opinions among the Parties, and seek common interest and a balance regarding the different interests of Parties. It will face complex situations, and all Parties expect more of China’s positive coordinating and leading role.

Apart from negotiating detailed rules and regulations of implementing the Paris Agreement, the climate conference in 2018 will conduct “a facilitative dialogue” to encourage all Parties to strengthen actions. The dialog will adopt a “story-telling” manner and have an exchange on the actions, achievements, experience as well as problems and difficulties of the Parties in addressing climate change. The dialog will also discuss on how to strengthen pre-2020 commitments and actions. As for the focus of the dialog, developed countries care more about emission reduction, while developing countries pay more attention to how to make dealing with climate change an opportunity to promote poverty alleviation and sustainable development, and how to embark on a climate-healthy and low-carbon economic development pathway as the Paris Agreement has advocated. The great achievements China has made in energy saving, carbon reduction and economic transition are mainly due to the efforts that it has combined domestic sustainable development and the response to climate change, and a multi-win-win situation of economy, people’s livelihood, energy, environment and CO₂ emission reduction is forming. Under the circumstance of urgent emission reduction action to control global temperature rise below 2°C, China’s successful experience in energy and economy transition, new urbanization, industrial transformation and upgrading, and etc. will provide examples for other developing countries. Therefore, China needs to summarize the positive examples at the national, urban, social and industrial levels for the “facilitative dialogue” in 2018 so as to provide China’s experience and solutions for the transition of global development concept and mode and enhance its national image and influence, and further make contributions to global eco-civilization construction for harmonious development between man and nature, and play a positive leading role.

To enhance its influence and leadership, China should particularly strengthen practical cooperation with other developing countries in addressing climate change and explore mutually beneficial and win-win cooperation modes. Holding the principle of achieving shared growth through discussion and collaboration in the Belt and Road Initiative, China promotes green development of countries along the route. It is also a practical action to advance global climate governance. China should pay attention to green low-carbon development in the cooperation of economy, technology and infrastructure construction between China and countries along the “Belt and Road.” Guided by the idea of cooperatively dealing with climate change and eco-crisis of the earth, China should build the interconnection of advanced energy technology and low-carbon infrastructure, take advantage of its new energy technology and smart power grid, develop global energy Internet and optimize the development and utilization of renewable energy in developing countries. While aiding poor countries to meet the demand for electricity, China should also facilitate their lower carbon economic development path. Through cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative, China aims to create new economic growth areas and development opportunities in addressing climate change, jointly explore the green low-carbon development model, and provide new experiences and approaches for international cooperation in addressing climate change.

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