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CHINAS LOW CARBON FUTURE OFFERS GLOBAL OPPORTUNITIESA briefing by chinadialogue, in association with the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit and Low Carbon Innovation in China: Prospects, Politics and Practice.Authors: Sam Geall and Lulu Ning Hui, with additional contributions from Isabel Hilton, Richard Black, Monica Wang, Yu Jie, Adrian Ely, David Tyfield and Frauke Urban.CHINAS LOW CARBON FUTURE OFFERS GLOBAL OPPORTUNITIESchinadialogueContentsExecutive Summary 4Chinas changing position in global negotiations 6Chinas low-carbon priorities and the new normal 10Planning the transition 17Transforming the energy system 20Low carbon innovation in a changing China 24Putting a price on carbon 26Opportunities for the world 31Conclusion 33About chinadialogue 34About Low Carbon Innovation in China 35About the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit 36CHINAS LOW CARBON FUTURE OFFERS GLOBAL OPPORTUNITIES4Executive SummaryOver the last few years, China has adopted an increasingly ambitious and committed approach to climate change and low-carbon development. The country has become the worlds biggest investor in renewable energy, and has rapidly restrained and apparently reversed its previous growth in coal consumption. The drivers include concern about environmental impacts including air pollution and climate change, and Chinas movement to a geopolitical role in which commitments to poorer countries and responsible global citizenship assume more central importance. More fundamentally, the costs of renewable energy have plummeted in the last few years, driven in large part by competition between Chinese manufacturers. As a result, China is poised to become the dominant supplier of products for the global low-carbon economy of the near future, with all the economic rewards that will bring. Importantly, Chinas embrace of a low-carbon development model may create incentives for other countries to move in a similar direction. Questions remain, however: what is the progress of Chinas efforts to decarbonise its economy? How can low-carbon innovation in China affect decarbonisation pathways elsewhere? What is driving the shift? Why has Chinas position at the talks changed and what might be coming down the line? The implications of these questions for the rest of the world will be profound. This report tries to explain the context, and capture the dynamism and scale of Chinas changing energy, environment and climate change landscape.3-14 Jun19922006-20102011-20157-18 Dec200911 Jun201212 Dec 201428 Feb20051-12 Dec1997Jun 20073-15 Dec200729 Oct201112 Sep201330 Jun201525 Sep2015The Kyoto Protocol wasadopted, which for the firsttime set quantifiedgreenhouse gas reductioncommitments for developedcountries between 2008 and2012.Creation of the UnitedNations FrameworkConvention on ClimateChange (UNFCCC) at theEarth Summit in Rio deJaneiro, Brazil. China is asignatory.Chinas Renewable EnergyLaw enters into force (a furtheramendment released in 2009).Chinas 11th Five YearPlan considers energyintensity reductions andcurbing major pollutants forthe first time.China launches its nationalplan on climate change,the first of any developingcountry.The Bali Action Plan startednegotiations with a view tothe adoption of a newinternational agreement in2009, to follow on from theKyoto Protocol in 2012.COP15 in Copenhagen, Denmark,approved a shared target to limitglobal warming to 2C, but themain deliverable, the “CopenhagenAccord” was not legally binding.China commits to 40-45% carbonintensity reduction target by 2020,on a 2005 baseline.Chinas 12th Five YearPlan includes carbonintensity reduction targetsfor the first time.Chinas State Councillaunched 7 emissionstrading scheme pilots.China establishesnational climate think-tank, National Centre forClimate ChangeStrategy.Chinas State Councilissues Air PollutionPrevention and ControlAction Plan.China-US JointAnnouncement onClimate Change.China announcesits emissions willpeak in 2030.China submits its UNclimate pledge (INDC),which commits the countryto reduce its carbonintensity by 60-65% on2005 levels by 2030.China-US JointAnnouncement on ClimateChange reveals China willset up a national carbonmarket in 2017 andestablish of a South-Southcooperation fund with aninitial pledge of US$2billion.30 Nov-11 Dec2015COP21Paris11th 5-Year Plan 12th 5-Year PlanChina andclimate: atimelineCHINAS LOW CARBON FUTURE OFFERS GLOBAL OPPORTUNITIES6Chinas participation in international climate talks started in 1992, when the country became a signatory to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (see timeline above). At that time, Chinas per-capita GDP was US$419, while its annual total energy consumption stood at 1.09 billion tonnes of coal equivalent. In 1997, China became a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol. However, its participation in international climate processes became more significant in the following decade. As Chinas economy grew, it began to include efforts to conserve energy and reduce pollution in its central planning. In 2004, China announced its Medium and Long-Term Plan to 2020 would include energy intensity reduction targets for the first time. The following year, the countrys Renewable Energy Law entered into force. The 11th Five Year Plan, from 2006 to 2010, was the first to contain binding national targets on energy intensity and reduction of major pollutants. In 2007, China formed its national lead office on climate change and issued the first national climate change plan of any developing country. Despite these efforts, China became the worlds largest emitter of greenhouse gases in 2007 and since then its emissions have continued to rise. Chinas total emissions currently far outstrip those of the United States, the second largest emitter, and the European Union (its per capita emissions are almost at the level of the EU). By 2014, Chinas per-capita GDP had risen to $7,485 and its total energy consumption to 3.75 billion tonnes of coal equivalent. With the US failure to ratify Kyoto and Chinas inclusion among developing nations who have no obligation to curb their emissions under the treaty much of the work towards a post-Kyoto framework focused on how it might include the worlds two largest emitters. However, at the Copenhagen Chinas changing position in global negotiationsCHINAS LOW CARBON FUTURE OFFERS GLOBAL OPPORTUNITIES 7climate summit in 2009, China was widely depicted as being one of the “laggards” that blocked a global treaty to control carbon emissions. Just six years on, its approach to the ongoing UN climate negotiations is very different. At the time of Copenhagen, China, like virtually every other country, outlined its plans for controlling its own emissions. It followed the norm for developing countries of a pledge to reduce “emissions intensity” the amount of greenhouse gas emitted per unit of GDP. Its target of a 40-45% cut by 2020 placed it among the more ambitious nations in the developing world. Six years on, emissions intensity has been reduced by 33%, and China is broadly on course to meet its 2020 target.Since 2011, China has hosted its own Pavilion at UN climate conferences and also made its negotiators more transparent during the talks, including meeting with NGOs and journalists more regularly 1. The following year, China launched its national climate-change think-tank the National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation (NCSC) under the National Development and Reform Commission, Chinas top economic planner. In 2012, China also first offered to support South-South cooperation on climate, with $10 million in funding. By 2015 this has risen to a total of $5.1 billion to help developing countries tackle climate change and development problems, in two large pledges from President Xi Jinping one announced during his visit to the United States in September and another at the UN General Assembly, focused on the post-2015 Development Agenda. This is a major development, as the assumption within the UN climate convention process has been that only developed nations would put such funding forward. Since then, China has engaged in a series of important bilateral meetings, including with the United Kingdom, South Korea, India, Brazil, France and the EU. However, the most significant have been two joint announcements from China and the United States. Not only are these nations the biggest two 1. chinadialogue/article/show/single/en/3966-China-will-be-transparent-CHINAS LOW CARBON FUTURE OFFERS GLOBAL OPPORTUNITIES8greenhouse gas emitters by far, accounting for around half of the global total, but mistrust between the two was also a significant factor behind the failure in Copenhagen, with relations on climate change remaining frosty in the few years afterwards.In the first of these bilateral announcements 2, in November 2014, President Xi pledged that China would peak its carbon emissions by 2030, with efforts to peak earlier. It will also increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to 20% by 2030. In June 2015, China officially submitted this plan to the UN climate convention (UNFCCC) 3, becoming the first emerging economy to unveil its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC). In doing so it clarified that this also entails an improvement of 60-65% in emissions intensity by 2030 (on a 2005 baseline).The second bilateral announcement 4took place in September 2015. The official statement from Presidents Xi and Obama noted that they share a “personal commitment to a successful climate agreement in Paris” scene of the 2015 UNFCCC summit, at which governments are likely to conclude a new global climate change agreement. The Presidents also outlined a number of unilateral and bilateral work streams, including Chinas plan to ensure half of its new urban buildings are “green” by 2020 and to introduce new fuel efficiency standards for heavy goods vehicles by 2019.In late November, Xie Zhenhua, Chinas lead negotiator and special representative on climate change, said the country hoped that the Paris conference could be a “landmark” one, at which delegates would reach an “ambitious, strong and legally binding” agreement. 2. whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/11/11/us-china-joint-announcement-climate-change3. newsroom.unfccc.int/unfccc-newsroom/china-submits-its-climate-action-plan-ahead-of-2015-paris-agreement/4. whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/09/25/us-china-joint-presidential-statement-climate-changeCHINAS LOW CARBON FUTURE OFFERS GLOBAL OPPORTUNITIES 9Taken together, these statements and pledges indicate that Chinas position at the talks, and relations between the worlds two “emissions superpowers”, have moved on hugely in the last six years since Copenhagen. International diplomacy has helped to advance Chinas stance towards international negotiations. But far more important is the growing awareness that climate impacts and air pollution pose major threats to development, and the rapidly evolving market for low-carbon goods and services. In short, Chinas new approach rests on the fact that its leaders see combatting climate change as being in the national interest. And underpinning that perception is not only a vision of how China might position itself in future, but also a real transformation already underway in Chinas economy. CHINAS LOW CARBON FUTURE OFFERS GLOBAL OPPORTUNITIES10To understand Chinas plans to “green” its economy, it is important to identify the multiple challenges the country faces, and the priorities of its government. After three decades of wasteful and highly polluting growth, China now aims to develop a new growth model that addresses both economic and environmental pressures.The assumption that environmental protection entails an economic sacrifice has largely been discarded in China. Rather, the government increasingly considers low-carbon sectors as the drivers of future growth. As the state-owned China Daily puts it 5: “Unlike the Western countries which only began to address environmental problems after they became rich and transferred their highly polluting manufacturing to developing countries, China has to blaze a new trail in order to achieve sustainable development.”In late 2014, President Xi first introduced the term “new normal” 6to describe Chinas transition to slower, more sustainable and efficient economic growth that avoids the “middle-income trap”, where a country attains a certain income but will get stuck at the level. Environmental concerns are also seen as improving energy security, for example by reducing gas import bills. In 2014, Chinas GDP growth was officially 7.4%, in line with the governments target of 7.5% for the year. In 2015, growth is expected to be 7.1%, and 6.9% 7by 2017. This is a much slower pace than the annual average of 10% attained in the past three decades. But it is still a medium-to-Chinas low-carbon priorities and the new normal5. chinadaily/opinion/2015-03/26/content_19912323.htm6. news.xinhuanet/english/china/2014-11/09/c_133776839.htm7. worldbank/content/dam/Worldbank/document/EAP/China/ceu_06_15_en.pdf
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