Developing a low-carbon economy has become inevitable for China in coping with climate change. As a responsible developing country, China has internalized low-carbon economy into its overall development strategy and is making unremitting efforts to realize objectives of temperature control and sustainable development.

At the end of 2009, the Central Economic Work Conference, which put forward climate change and greenhouse gas emissions control objectives, demonstrated that the Chinese now have clearer ideas of how to proceed along the road toward a low-carbon economy.

Achievement not coming easily

Greenhouse gas emissions come mainly from the combustion of traditional fossil energy (coal, petroleum and natural gas), so the essence of a low-carbon economy is to cut greenhouse gas emissions --particularly carbon dioxide.

In China's energy production and consumption composition, coal accounts for approximately 70 percent, mainly in electric power generation. The concern is: How will China manage to cut carbon emissions given its present stage of industrialization?

"Since it adopted its policy of reform and opening up, China has always been committed to working on coal fired generation efficiency and purification levels" - this is not the judgment of a single person but a statement in the Policy on Sustainability of Coal and Pollution Control issued by the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development in 2009.

Statistics support this assertion: By the end of 2008, China's electric power installed capacity had reached 792 million kw, of which 600 million kw came from coal power. In the area of coal power, large-scale units with a capacity of more than 300,000 kw already accounted for more than 50 percent. China also raised average efficiency in thermal power. By 2008, the amount of coal necessary to produce each kw/h of electric power had dropped to 349 grams of standard coal, lower than the United States and Germany in 2005.

Its coal-centered energy production together with accelerated industrialization and urbanization have made it impossible for China to realize low-carbon coal consumption practices overnight. It has not been easy for China to reach the level it is at today.

While increasing coal efficiency and purification levels, China is also making great efforts to develop clean power from sources such as wind, the sun, hydropower, nuclear power and biomass energy. By the end of 2008, clean energy made up 9 percent of China's primary energy consumption. Its hydropower installed capacity, the scale of current nuclear power development, heating generated through colar power and its accumulated capacity of solar energy photovoltaic power generation ranked the world's first while the installed capacity of wind power ranked the world's fourth.

Forest carbon sinks work

China's leaders repeatedly mention planning to increase forest carbon sinks. By 2020, China's forest coverage will have increased by 40 million hectares compared to 2005 and forest volume increased by 1.3 billion cubic meters from 2005.

Experts believe that to cope with climate change, we need to "walk two paths." One is emissions reductions in industry, construction and traffic, and the other is forest carbon sinks. A forest carbon sink refers to the process of forests absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it in plants or the earth, so as to reduce its density in the air. Compared with direct emissions reductions in industry, forest carbon sinks are a kind of indirect emissions reduction. They make little demand in investment and costs, but provide comprehensive benefits. Therefore, it's quite a practical and economical way to reduce emissions. Every hectare of forest is able to absorb between 20 and 40 tons of carbon dioxide.

In November 2009, China's State Council announced the 7th general forest inventory, which showed China's national forest coverage had reached more than 1.95 trillion hectares and the country's forest coverage rate jumped to 20.36 percent. At the 2007 APEC conference, China made a commitment to the world to increase forest coverage rate to 20 percent by 2010, which was realized well ahead of time.

It's worth mentioning that the interval between this forest inventory and the previous one was five years. During this period, the net growth of China's forest coverage was more than 20.54 million hectares, forest stock increased by more than 1.12 billion cubic meters and the national coverage reached 20.36 percent from 18.21 percent. A 2.15 percent growth seems like nothing, but given huge annual demand for timber, unavoidable felling in the forests and a relatively low survival rate of new planting, the growth was a big plus.

During the 25 years from 1980 and 2005, thanks to the continuous efforts of tree planting, forest operations and control over felling, some 5.11 billion tons of carbon dioxide were absorbed or otherwise reduced.

Low-carbon life starts in daily life

In 2008, the World Wildlife Fund launched the "China low-carbon city development program," with Shanghai and Baoding city in Hebei Province selected as the first pilot cities. From then on, being a "low-carbon city" has become increasingly popular. Cities such as Zhuhai, Hangzhou, Guiyang, Jilin and Nanchang have all put forward their plans to develop themselves into low-carbon cities.

Shanghai is now busy preparing for the 2010 World Expo. It is trying to put into practice the concept of a low-Carbon World Expo?for traffic in its central garden, where various clean energy technologies such as wind power, photoelectric power, light heat, geothermal heat and river water-sourced heat, will be extensively used to power super-capacity trolleybuses and fuel-cell vehicles, so that there will zero carbon emissions within the garden.

In order to realize the dream of low-carbon cities, people are becoming more supportive of environment-friendly ways of life by recycling, conserving water, electricity and paper, producing less rubbish; and walking, cycling and taking buses more than using private cars. The public has responded strongly to the call of "starting from little changes to make big improvements."

Editor: Linda

Source: People's Daily Online