China’s pre-2020 CO₂ emission reduction potential and its influence

Abstract

China achieved the reduction of CO₂ intensity of GDP by 45% compared with 2005 at the end of 2017, realizing the commitment at 2009 Copenhagen Conference on emissions reduction 3 years ahead of time. In future implementation of the “13th Five-Year Plan (FYP),” with the decline of economic growth rate, decrease of energy consumption elasticity and optimization of energy structure, the CO₂ intensity of GDP will still have the potential for decreasing before 2020. By applying KAYA Formula decomposition, this paper makes the historical statistics of the GDP energy intensity decrease and CO₂ intensity of energy consumption since 2005, and simulates the decrease of CO₂ intensity of GDP in 2020 and its influences on achieving National Determined Contribution (NDC) target in 2030 with scenario analysis. The results show that China’s CO₂ intensity of GDP in 2020 is expected to fall by 52.9%–54.4% than the 2005 level, and will be 22.9%–25.4% lower than 2015. Therefore, it is likely to overfulfill the decrease of CO₂ intensity of GDP by 18% proposed in the 13th FYP period. Furthermore, the emission reduction potentiality before 2020 will be conducive to the earlier realization of NDC objectives in 2030. China’s CO₂ intensity of GDP in 2030 will fall by over 70% than that in 2005, and CO₂ emissions peak will appear before 2030 as early as possible. To accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy, China needs to make better use of the carbon market, and guide the whole society with carbon price to reduce emissions effectively. At the same time, China should also study the synergy of policy package so as to achieve the target of emission reduction.

Keywords

China’s National Determined Contribution / emission reduction potential / scenario analysis / CO₂ emissions peak

China published its CO₂ emission reduction target at 2009 Copenhagen Conference, aiming to reduce CO₂ intensity of GDP by 40%–45% in 2020 compared with 2005. In fact, China already reduced CO₂ intensity of GDP by more than 45% of the 2005 level at the end of 2017. The following 3 years (2018–2020) will be an important phase to fulfill China’s “13th Five-Year Plan (FYP)”. After these three years of efforts, China’s carbon intensity of GDP will decrease further in 2020, which would not only lay a solid foundation for fulfilling the NDC targets put forward at the Paris Climate Conference, but also support the demonstration of 2050 low emission strategy.

Introduction

At the COP 21 held in Paris in 2015, a consensus was reached on the new global emission reduction mechanism with the character of “Bottom-Up.” It was proposed that at the second half of the 21st century the global temperature raise should be controlled to no more than 2°C, or even less than 1.5°C compared with that before the industrial revolution. Based on the expected emission reduction goal in 2020 proposed at the 2009 Copenhagen Conference, China published its 2030 National Determined Contribution (NDC) target at the COP 21, which included reducing CO₂ intensity of GDP by 60%–65% in 2030 compared with that of 2005, and achieving the peaking of CO₂ emissions around 2030 or even earlier [¹]. From the “12th-Five Year Plan (FYP)” to the 13th FYP, along with the economic transition from “high speed” to “high quality,” the GDP growth rate declines, and industrial structure gets optimized continually. Besides, with the rapid development of new and renewable energy, energy mix gets improved and the CO₂ intensity of GDP declines significantly. According to the latest statistics, at the end of 2017, China’s CO₂ intensity of GDP had already declined by about 45% compared with 2005 [²], which means China’s emission reduction commitments at the 2009 Copenhagen Conference has been fulfilled 3 years beforehand.

China has made unprecedented efforts in fulfilling the 45% reduction of CO₂ intensity of GDP 3 years beforehand. As reported by the latest statistics, China’s average annual decrease rate of CO₂ intensity of GDP reached 4.86% from 2005 to 2017; however, that rate of the USA, Japan, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries and the world as a whole was 2.4%, 0.7%, 2.2% and 0.4% respectively from 2005 to 2014 according to the World Bank statistics [³]. This reveals that China has made important contributions to global climate change mitigation and carbon reduction with its fast economic growth, changes in economic development pattern and momentum, improvement of energy structure, and increase in carbon productivity.

In the 13th FYP period, as China’s economy enters a new normal, the driving force of economy changes, industrial structure improves continually, and GDP growth slows down. Likewise, in urbanization the demand for infrastructure investment and construction decreases; the need for energy-intensive raw material products such as steel and cement gets saturated or starts to decline. Besides, industrial structure transformation and upgrading becomes more difficult, and there are both opportunities and challenges in new and renewable energy development. The 13th FYP suggests that energy intensity of GDP and CO₂ intensity of GDP will decline by 15% and 18% respectively in 2020 compared with that of 2015 [⁴], which will lay a good foundation for achieving the NDC targets in 2030. The period from 2018 to 2020 is critical for accomplishing the 13th FYP objectives, and efforts in carbon emission reduction before 2020 will lay a solid foundation for the 60%–65% decrease of CO₂ intensity of GDP in 2030 compared with that of 2005 as well as the earlier peaking of CO₂ emissions.

Studies focusing on China’s CO₂ emissions in the future have been conducted. However, some of them are published earlier, in which the situations have changed a lot because of the development [⁵,⁶] while some of them have been based on the strong assumption that the CO₂ emission peak of China will appear later than NDC goals [⁷–⁹]. Besides, some studies have been performed using different models to discuss the CO₂ emission peak in the future [¹⁰–¹³]. Of course, different methodologies will verify different topics. By adopting the KAYA equation method in this study [¹⁴], the authors of this paper hope to clearly reveal the relationships between the elements which influence the CO₂ emissions.

Factor decomposition of CO₂ intensity of GDP

According to the KAYA equation, the CO₂ intensity of GDP could be decomposed into two components: energy intensity of GDP and CO₂ intensity of energy consumption. By definition, the annual rate of decline in CO₂ intensity of GDP (∆I_GC) is calculated by the difference value of CO₂ intensity of GDP in the adjacent two years divided by the CO₂ intensity of GDP in the previous year, as explicated by Eq. (1).

{{\displaystyle \Delta I}}_{\mathrm{G}\mathrm{C}}={\displaystyle \frac{{\displaystyle \frac{{\mathrm{E}}^{(\mathrm{1})}}{{\mathrm{G}\mathrm{D}\mathrm{P}}^{(\mathrm{1})}}}\times {\displaystyle \frac{{{\displaystyle \mathrm{C}\mathrm{O}}}_{\mathrm{2}}^{(\mathrm{1})}}{{\mathrm{E}}^{(\mathrm{1})}}}-{\displaystyle \frac{{\mathrm{E}}^{(\mathrm{0})}}{{\mathrm{G}\mathrm{D}\mathrm{P}}^{(\mathrm{0})}}}\times {\displaystyle \frac{{{\displaystyle \mathrm{C}\mathrm{O}}}_{\mathrm{2}}^{(\mathrm{0})}}{{\mathrm{E}}^{(\mathrm{0})}}}}{{\displaystyle \frac{{\mathrm{E}}^{(\mathrm{0})}}{{\mathrm{G}\mathrm{D}\mathrm{P}}^{(\mathrm{0})}}}\times {\displaystyle \frac{{{\displaystyle \mathrm{C}\mathrm{O}}}_{\mathrm{2}}^{(\mathrm{0})}}{{\mathrm{E}}^{(\mathrm{0})}}}}}

={\displaystyle \frac{{\displaystyle \frac{{\mathrm{E}}^{(\mathrm{0})}}{{\mathrm{G}\mathrm{D}\mathrm{P}}^{(\mathrm{0})}}}\times (\mathrm{1}+{{\displaystyle \Delta I}}_{\mathrm{G}\mathrm{E}})\times {\displaystyle \frac{{{\displaystyle \mathrm{C}\mathrm{O}}}_{\mathrm{2}}^{(\mathrm{0})}}{{\mathrm{E}}^{(\mathrm{0})}}}\times (\mathrm{1}+{{\displaystyle \Delta I}}_{\mathrm{E}\mathrm{C}})-{\displaystyle \frac{{\mathrm{E}}^{(\mathrm{0})}}{{\mathrm{G}\mathrm{D}\mathrm{P}}^{(\mathrm{0})}}}\times {\displaystyle \frac{{{\displaystyle \mathrm{C}\mathrm{O}}}_{\mathrm{2}}^{(\mathrm{0})}}{{\mathrm{E}}^{(\mathrm{0})}}}}{{\displaystyle \frac{{\mathrm{E}}^{(\mathrm{0})}}{{\mathrm{G}\mathrm{D}\mathrm{P}}^{(\mathrm{0})}}}\times {\displaystyle \frac{{{\displaystyle \mathrm{C}\mathrm{O}}}_{\mathrm{2}}^{(\mathrm{0})}}{{\mathrm{E}}^{(\mathrm{0})}}}}}

(1)={{\displaystyle \Delta I}}_{\mathrm{G}\mathrm{E}}+{{\displaystyle \Delta I}}_{\mathrm{E}\mathrm{C}}+{{\displaystyle \Delta I}}_{\mathrm{G}\mathrm{E}}\times {{\displaystyle \Delta I}}_{\mathrm{E}\mathrm{C}}.

In Eq. (1), the {\mathit{E}}^{(i)}represents the energy consumption in year (i), {\mathrm{G}\mathrm{D}\mathrm{P}}^{(i)} represnets the gross domestic product in year (i), {{\displaystyle \mathrm{C}\mathrm{O}}}_{\mathrm{2}}^{(i)} represents the CO₂ emissions in year (i), {{\displaystyle \Delta I}}_{\mathrm{G}\mathrm{E}} represents the annual decrease rate of energy intensity of GDP, and {{\displaystyle \Delta I}}_{\mathrm{E}\mathrm{C}} means the annual decrease rate of CO₂ intensity of energy consumption. Since the value of {{\displaystyle \Delta I}}_{\mathrm{G}\mathrm{E}} and {{\displaystyle \Delta I}}_{\mathrm{E}\mathrm{C}} are usually few hundredths, their product ({{\displaystyle \Delta I}}_{\mathrm{G}\mathrm{E}}\times {{\displaystyle \Delta I}}_{\mathrm{E}\mathrm{C}}) in the equation could be ignored, thus Eq. (1) approximately equals Eq. (2).

(2){{\displaystyle \Delta I}}_{GC}\approx {{\displaystyle \Delta I}}_{GE}+{{\displaystyle \Delta I}}_{EC}.

Equation (2) shows that the decrease rate of the CO₂ intensity of GDP can be approximately calculated by the decrease rate of the energy intensity of GDP plus the decrease rate of the CO₂ intensity of energy consumption. To improve the economic output per unit energy consumption and to decrease the CO₂ intensity of energy consumption are the key methods to accelerate the decrease of the CO₂ intensity of GDP [¹⁵].

Contribution analysis of energy intensity of GDP to CO₂ intensity of GDP

Both technical energy saving and structural energy conservation are effective ways to decrease the energy intensity of GDP. Technical energy saving is to improve the efficiency of energy production, transformation and usage through technology innovation, which also means providing the same social services with less energy. Structural energy conservation is to decrease the demand for final energy service through adjusting and optimizing industrial structure, production mode, and social consumption fashion in production and consumption. In a word, technical energy saving relies on technology innovation to improve energy efficiency, and structural energy conservation requires adjusting energy usage in production and life [¹⁶].

The Chinese government has called attention to energy conservation since the 10th FYP. Significant progresses have been made in both technical energy saving and structural energy conservation. The product unit consumption in energy-intensive product industry decreases significantly in recent years with technology innovation and upgrading. For example, from 2005 to 2016, the steel comparable energy consumption, cement comprehensive energy consumption, and electrolytic aluminum AC power consumption decreased from 732 kgce/t, 149 kgce/t, and 14575 kWh/t to 640 kgce/t, 135 kgce/t, and 13599 kWh/t, with average annual decrease rates of 1.2%, 0.9%, and 0.6% respectively. The gross coal consumption rate of thermal power plants also fell from 343 gce/kWh in 2005 to 294 gce/kWh in 2016 due to the adoption of supercritical and ultra-supercritical units [¹⁷].

Through adjustment of industrial structure and change of development mode, the industry investment inclined to high-tech industry and modern service industry, therefore the proportion of secondary industry in GDP declined from 47.0% in 2005 to 40.5% in 2017. In addition, the output of energy-intensive raw materials began to shrink. Along with the rapid economic development and coaction of technical and structural energy conservation, China’s energy intensity of GDP has fallen significantly each year. From 2005 to 2013, the average annual increase rate of GDP was 10.1%, and the average energy consumption elasticity of GDP maintained a high level of around 0.6 due to the rapid development of energy-intensive industry. Besides, the average annual growth rate of energy consumption reached 6.0%, and the average annual decrease rate of energy intensity of GDP was 3.7%. From 2013 to 2016, the average annual increase rate of GDP abated to about 7.0%. As the output of energy-intensive products peaked and began to go downward and the effect of structural energy saving started to play its role, the average annual increase rate of energy consumption declined to 1.5%, and the average annual decrease rate of energy intensity of GDP rose to 5.1%. From 2016 to 2017, the average annual growth rate of GDP was 6.9%, and the annual increase rate of energy consumption was 3.0%. Further, the energy consumption elasticity of GDP kept a relatively reasonable level (0.43), higher than that from 2013 to 2016 (0.22) [¹⁸].

The period from 2018 to 2020 is important for fulfilling the 13th FYP. According to current development trends, the average annual increase rate of GDP of this period is likely to reach 6.3% –6.8%, and the energy consumption elasticity of GDP could fall to 0.35–0.4 from 0.43 of 2016–2017. Based on the above assumptions, the average annual increase rate of energy consumption would remain 2.2%–2.7%, and the average annual decrease rate of energy intensity of GDP would still maintain a high level of 3.8%–3.9%. The scenario analysis of the decrease in energy intensity of GDP before 2020 is listed in Table 1.

China’s carbon market was launched on December 2017 with the electricity department as the pioneer. In the future, the other 7 sectors such as petrochemical, chemical, building materials, iron and steel, non-ferrous metals, paper and aviation will take part in the carbon market. Up to now, there is a lack of quantitative influence result of current carbon market to the whole economy. As expanding the scope of the carbon market in the future, the carbon market will play an important role in reducing the energy intensity of GDP, but there are lots of uncertainties about the effect. The experiences from China’s pilot carbon market showed that the carbon market played an effective role in reducing CO₂ emissions [¹⁹].

Contribution analysis of CO₂ intensity of energy consumption to CO₂ intensity of GDP

The decrease of carbon intensity of energy consumption is mainly realized by adjusting the energy supply structure. China’s fossil energy reserves are characterized by more coal and less oil and gas, which leads to the high proportion of coal in primary energy consumption, reaching 60.4% in 2017. However, the world average level was less than 30%. In recent years, with China’s emphasis on the development of new and renewable energy, non-fossil energy has developed rapidly. Due to its small base, although the newly added non-fossil energy still cannot meet the annual growth of 3%–5% of the total energy demand, the momentum of energy structure optimization is obvious. From 2005 to 2017, the total energy consumption increased 71.8%, and the scale of non-fossil fuel in primary energy consumption rose from 7.4% to 13.8%, with an average annual growth rate of 10.2% [²].

China has formulated policies and plans to strongly support the development of non-fossil fuel. At Copenhagen Conference held in 2009, the Chinese government announced that the share of non-fossil fuel in total primary energy consumption would reach 15% in 2020. This goal is also affirmed by the energy development strategy of the 13th FYP, which also proposed to raise the proportions of installed capacity of non-fossil fuel and non-fossil electricity from 35% and 27% in 2015 to 39% and 31% in 2020 respectively, and to improve the share of natural gas in primary energy consumption to more than 10% in 2020. To achieve these targets, the government has implemented coal consumption mitigation. Coal reduction is launched in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, and Pearl River Delta, while equivalent coal substitution is applied in other important regions. In addition, price reform and market construction of natural gas are promoted to expand gas consumption, while coal-to-gas projects are implemented in major cities. Moreover, electricity substitution is promoted in everyday life, industrial and agricultural production, and transportation and other fields to create enough space for renewable electricity consumption. According to the energy development strategy of the 13th FYP, the installed scale of conventional hydropower, nuclear power, wind power, solar power and biomass power in 2020 would be 340 million kW, 58 million kW, 210 million kW, 110 million kW and 15 million kW, respectively, which would foster the investment of clean energy [²⁰]. From 2005 to 2016, the investment of nuclear power and wind power increased from 0.5 billion dollars and 0.6 billion dollars to 7.2 billion dollars and 12.8 billion dollars respectively, and that of solar power reached 3.1 billion dollars in 2015 [²¹]. Under the drive of investment, new and renewable energy developed faster in recent years, and the technical costs of non-fossil electricity decrease significantly. It is expected that the on-grid price of wind power would be as much as that of coal and photovoltaic power would realize grid parity on user side in 2020.

The results of energy structure adjustment were remarkable from 2005 to 2017: the share of coal in primary energy consumption lowered from 72.4% to 60.4%, while that of non-fossil fuel increased from 7.4% to 13.8%. The CO₂ intensity of energy consumption fell from 2.29 tCO₂/tce to 2.07 tCO₂/tce, and the down trend accelerates these years. Based on the energy development strategy of 13th FYP and the optimized energy structure at the end of 2017, the possible energy structure scenarios are demonstrated in Table 2. According to Scenarios E1 and E2, the average annual decrease rates of the CO₂ intensity of energy consumption will reach 0.98%–1.97% from 2018 to 2020.

Scenario analysis of decrease of CO₂ intensity of GDP before 2020

Based on Scenarios S1 and S2 of energy intensity and GDP growth in Table 1 and Scenarios E1 and E2 of energy consumption structure in Table 2, the decrease of the CO₂ intensity of GDP is worked out as Scenarios S1E1 and S2E2 in Table 3. Scenario S1E1 is based on the expected aims of the 13th FYP, which indicates that in 2020 the proportion of non-fossil fuel in primary energy consumption would be more than 15%, that of natural gas would rise to around 10%, and that of coal would decline to less than 58%. Meanwhile, the average annual growth rate of GDP would be 6.8% and annual energy consumption elasticity would maintain about 0.4. Scenario S2E2 shows lower rates of annual economic growth (6.3%) and energy consumption elasticity (0.35), and implies a higher proportion of non-fossil fuel in primary energy consumption (17%). It also expects a higher proportion of natural gas (1% more than Scenario S1E1) and a faster decrease of coal in primary energy consumption. The scenario analysis and the results of Scenario S1E1 and S2E2 are displayed in Table 3.

The scenario analysis shows that if energy development goals of the 13th FYP were achieved successfully, that is, if ScenarioS1E1 were realized, in 2020 the total primary energy consumption would be 8.47 billion tce, the total CO₂ emissions would be 9.79 billion tCO₂, and the decrease rate of the CO₂ intensity of GDP would be 52.9% lower than that of 2005. For Scenario S2E2, due to the lower rate of economic growth and energy consumption elasticity, the total primary energy consumption and CO₂ emission are expected to be less than those of Scenario S1E1, reaching 4.79 billion tce and 9.34 billion tCO₂ respectively. The rate of decline in the CO₂ intensity of GDP would be 54.4% lower than that in 2005. Combining the two scenarios above, China’s CO₂ intensity of GDP in 2020 could reach 5 2.9%–54.4%, falling more than 50% compared with 2005. At present, China’s economy shifts to high quality development, industry structural transition accelerates, and the technology on renewable energy, energy storage, and smart grid continually makes breakthroughs. All these provide technological support for modern energy system construction and accelerate the decline of the CO₂ intensity of GDP.

Effect of pre-2020 potential CO₂ emission reduction on NDC target

The potential for CO₂ emissions reduction before 2020 will lay the foundation for accomplishing NDC targets in 2030. If CO₂ emission was reduced by 45% in 2020 compared with that in 2005, the average annual decrease rate of the CO₂ intensity of GDP should be 3.1%–4.4% in 2020–2030 in order to realize the 60%–65% reduction of CO₂ emission in 2030. Based on the scenario analysis in Section 3, China’s CO₂ intensity of GDP would decrease 52.9%–54.4% in 2020 compared with that in 2005. If CO₂ emission decreased 52.9% in 2020 compared with that in 2005, and the annual rate of decline in the CO₂ intensity of GDP maintained 3.1%–4.4%, the CO₂ intensity of GDP in 2030 would be 65.7%–70.0% lower than that in 2005 and 5% higher than the 2030 NDC target. Based on the scenario analysis S1E1 and S2E2 in 2020, the scenario analysis of the CO₂ intensity of GDP in 2025 and 2030 is displayed in Table 4.

In Table 4, the average annual increase rate of GDP is assumed according to the trend of the new normal of economic development, and the energy consumption elasticity is estimated based on the effect of industrial structure transformation and upgrading. The energy structure is considered based on “The Strategy for Energy Production and Consumption Revolutionary (2016–2030)” published by the National Development and Reform Commission and National Energy Administration on December 29, 2016 [²²]. As mentioned by “The Strategy,” non-fossil energy power generation would account for 50%, and power generation would constitute 50% of the total primary energy consumption at that time, thus non-fossil fuel would form about 25% in the total primary energy consumption in 2030. In scenario S1E1, the share of coal, natural gas, and oil in primary energy consumption is 46%, 15%, and 17% respectively in 2030. In Scenario S2E2, the annual growth rate of GDP and the energy consumption elasticity are lower than Scenario S1E1, and the energy structure is better optimized than Scenario S1E1.

Based on the above scenario analysis, China’s energy consumption would be lower than 5.5 billion tce in 2025 and less than 6.0 billion tce in 2030 (5.6–5.8 billion tce). The CO₂ intensity of GDP would decrease by 63.0%–64.4% in 2025 and more than 70% in 2030 compared with that in 2005, which indicates that the NDC target of 60%–65% decline in the CO₂ intensity of GDP would be achieved around the year of 2025 as shown in Fig. 1. In Scenario S1E1, CO₂ emissions will reach 10.3 billion tCO₂ in 2025, and then enter a plateau and decline slowly. In Scenario S2E2 the plateau of CO₂ emissions appears after 2020, and the peak of CO₂ emissions attains about 9.5 billion tCO₂.

Conclusions and policy suggestions

China is now in a crucial stage of the 13th FYP. Based on the current trend, the CO₂ intensity of GDP would be over 50% lower in 2020 than that in 2005. Therefore, China would overfulfill its commitment at Copenhagen Conference, and the decline in the CO₂ intensity of GDP would also overfulfill the expected 18% decrease. According to the above scenario analysis, further reduction efforts before 2020 will effectively curb the increase of total CO₂ emissions and accelerate the realization of NDC goals. On the other hand, China faces many difficulties to accomplish the above scenarios. Nowadays, the severe downward pressure on economic development, the uncertainty in energy consumption elasticity of GDP, and the energy mix optimization imply that the government should make great efforts in order to achieve the above scenarios. The measures include two aspects as follows.

One is to accelerate CO₂ emission reduction via market mechanism. Market mechanism would make rational price for externalities of carbon emissions, thus it will accelerate technology innovation with small marginal abasement cost, and stimulate enterprise investment in techniques of energy saving and emission reduction. At the end of 2017, China’s national CO₂ emissions trading market was initiated with the power industry as the pioneer. The market system is now in construction and improvement, and will be the largest CO₂ emissions trading system in the world. Healthy and effective operation of the carbon market will further promote the potential for the CO₂ emissions reduction of enterprises and play an important role for China to achieve its NDC goals.

The other is to study and exert the joint force of policy package. To attain the energy conservation and emission reduction targets in the 13th FYP, many policies have been worked out by different departments. Importance should be attached to the synergy between newly enforced policies and policies already issued, and the regulating and guiding role of these policies ought to be fully played. Moreover, in line with the times, policy packages should be perfected, and particularly, the systems and mechanisms on energy saving and emission reduction have to be rationalized so as to effectively reduce CO₂ emissions via the aid of policy package.

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