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China making good on calls to cut carbon emissions
By Zhang Zhengfu and and Liu Min |
December 21, 2009, Monday
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CHINA announced ambitious plans last month to cut greenhouse gas emissions per unit of GDP by 40 to 45 percent by 2020 from the 2005 level.
As a developing country with a per capita GDP of US$2,770, less than a third of the world's average, China's road of low-carbon development would incur heavy costs in the short run. Reaching the 45 percent target by 2020 would cost China US$30 billion per year over the next 10 years, said Zou Ji, a professor with the Renmin University of China.
In the first four years of China's 11th Five-Year Plan Period (2006-2010), the closure of high energy-consuming and high carbon-emitting plants led to the loss of 400,000 jobs, according to research by Zou's team.
China faced special difficulties in controlling greenhouse gas emissions with its large population and relatively low economic development level, said Xie Zhenhua, vice minister of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) last month.
About 150 million Chinese live in poverty, posing a daunting challenge in improving living standards.
Heavy industries with high carbon emissions accounted for 71 percent of China's industrial output in 2008, and coal accounted for 70 percent of energy consumption, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
To substantially cut greenhouse gas emissions, China must move away from the traditional development mode that featured high pollution and high emissions, said Zhou Dadi, a researcher of the NDRC.
In the past three years, the government has been eliminating outdated steel, cement and coke producers.
By July, China had shut down small thermal power units capable of generating 54 million kilowatts, equal to 124 million tonsof carbon dioxide emissions avoided, according to the NDRC.
The government is also stepping up development of clean energies and renewable technologies. By the end of 2008, China's installed capacity of hydro-electricity reached 172 million kilowatts, the highest in the world. The installed capacity of wind power doubled for three consecutive years.
In 2008, China used a total of renewable energy equal to 250 million tons of standard coal, avoiding 600 million tons of carbon emissions, according to statistics of the National Energy Administration.
Jeff Huang, vice president of the Chicago Climate Exchange, says: "China is not only making progress in quantity of new energy used, but also in renewable technologies."
China is not just going greener at home, it cooperates with Africa to that effect too.
In the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the China-Africa Cooperation Forum in November, China announced aid for African countries to build more than 100 solar power, marsh gas and hydro-electricity projects.
Nick Nuttall, spokesman for the Nairobi-based United Nations Environment Program, said earlier this month that the assistance China provided was conducive to Africa's sustainable development and diversifying the continent's economic growth patterns.
(The authors are Xinhua writers.)
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