China's kungfu fight against climate change
- By Chai Qimin
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E-mail China Daily, July 21, 2015
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Smoke billows from a factory in Dezhou, Shandong province. To reach mandatory efficiency goals, the government had to take some extreme steps, including power cuts and limits on electricity supply in 2010. [Provided to China Daily] |
On June 30, China submitted to the UN secretariat a report on its intended nationally determined contribution (INDC) post-2020 climate actions during Premier Li Keqiang's visit to Brussels and Paris, which will host the UN climate change conference in December. The timeframe of China's emissions peak was part of the China-US Joint Statement last November, but the INDC is a full set of green kungfu moves to realize the Chinese Dream.
No country can accurately predict the future - a move in kungfu called "the remorse of brouhaha dragon", which points to positive outcome leaving room for maneuver - but China will do its best to achieve the target.
The first moveis to decouple carbon emissions and the economy by 4 percent every year. China will lower its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per unit of GDP by 60 to 65 percent by 2030 from the 2005 level, which means the carbon intensity will be reduced by 3.6 percent to 4.1 percent in 25 years.
The goal can be achieved before schedule, as was the case for the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15) - the carbon intensity is expected to be lowered by more than 45 percent by 2020.
The second move is energy revolution. The increment in non-fossil energy generation is expected to be more than one-third of the world's total in 25 years. Installed capacities of 60 GW and generated power of 250 TeraWatt are required every year by 2030, among which the installed capacities of new nuclear, solar and wind power should be about 200 GW (220 nuclear reactors, 14 new ones every year), 300 GW (17,000 solar farms, 1,100 new ones a year) and 400 GW (22,0000 wind turbines, 14,000 new a year). And the total investment in non-fossil fuel is likely to reach about $2.5 trillion.
