[ad_1]
China’s promise to be carbon neutral by 2060 has rekindled hopes in Beijing’s commitment to global climate change goals, but left unanswered questions about how the world’s largest emitter can achieve the ambitious goal.
China’s President Xi Jinping’s statement at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, after Donald Trump had previously criticized Beijing’s environmental record, has been hailed as a major step forward in international negotiations on how to curb global warming.
“It shows real leadership, not just a zero-sum back and forth about who does what first,” said Dimitri de Boer, China chief representative for ClientEarth, a non-governmental organization focused on environmental law.
“By announcing now, instead of waiting for the US elections, China wins a lot of friends in Europe and some in the United States as well. It is actually a game changer at the geopolitical level, ”she said. Until now, many national and multilateral discussions on emissions and climate targets have been suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic.
But China’s path to reducing emissions is still unclear. The 40-year timeframe to achieve near-zero carbon dioxide emissions also leaves open the possibility of delayed action in the short term, in the hope that technological advances will generate quick gains later, experts warn.
“The devil will be in the details and China should set more specific short-term targets and an earlier deadline,” Helen Mountford, vice president for climate and economics at the World Resources Institute, a non-governmental organization, said in a statement.
Aside from the 2060 target, Xi also promised that China would peak carbon dioxide emissions “before” 2030, but did not specify a year. His previous goal had been “around” 2030.
Much depends on how China solves a climate contradiction in its energy sector: it leads the world in the production and installation of wind turbines and solar panels, but depends on coal for almost 60% of energy production, which represents about half. of its carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels, according to the IAEA.
Despite Xi’s calls for a “revolution” to accelerate “green development,” Beijing this year approved coal-fired power plants at the fastest pace since 2015.
The commitment comes even as China has approved coal-fired power plants at the fastest pace since 2015 © Bloomberg
At the same time, the government has pledged to end subsidies for new onshore wind installations by 2021 and cut support for solar power plans in half this year, a trend that calls into question the future pace. of adoption.
An important sign of China’s determination to take immediate action will be the energy targets that Beijing sets in its next five-year plan, China 14, to be released next spring. Lawmakers are discussing the details of the agenda setting document.
“The big question is whether the fourteenth five-year plan keeps a cap on coal power capacity at 1,100 gigawatts by 2030 or sets something lower or higher,” said Jorrit Gosens, a researcher on China’s energy transition at the National University. from Australia.
The new plan could also see China’s goal of producing 20 percent of electricity supply from renewable sources by 2030, he said.
To achieve such ambitious goals, China will need to accelerate several climate initiatives, including reforms of energy pricing mechanisms to discourage coal use and a repeatedly delayed plan to launch a nationwide emissions trading scheme.
“Currently there are no strong incentives for grid operators to buy renewable energy,” said Mr. Gosens. “There will need to be a pricing mechanism that makes coal-fired power very expensive.
But the implications of a net zero target go far beyond China’s energy sector. The new goal will require a radical overhaul of the world’s second-largest economy while looking for ways to curb, capture, or offset emissions from everything from livestock to the auto sector.
China’s investment in carbon-intensive infrastructure remains high as a share of gross domestic product compared to many developed countries. It produces half of the world’s steel and almost 60 percent of the world’s cement.
As such, Beijing faces an uphill battle to win over local government officials with a costly and potentially destabilizing change to clean up the economy in the rust belt regions that rely heavily on polluting industry for growth and jobs. .
An unanswered question is how to achieve a “just transition” to carbon neutrality without causing massive disruptions to people’s lives and incomes, said ClientEarth’s Mr. de Boer.
“Chinese political researchers will go to Germany to understand how a just transition worked there. But once you talk about the numbers [in Germany] – about 400,000 people – the Chinese are starting to laugh, ”he said. “They have to do that for millions of people every year.”
