Op-Ed Contributors

Debate: Climate change

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-04-06 07:55

As the memories of Copenhagen fade, three scholars tell us how to face the challenges of the climate meetings in Bonn and Cancun and what to expect beyond them.

Lin Boqiang: Future rides on going low-carbon

The transformation to a low-carbon economy is already in many of the agendas of countries across the world. This demands enterprises to make every effort to cope with change. All enterprises, including the carbon emission-intensive energy and transport sectors and the low-carbon financial industry, should make low-carbon economy an integral part of their strategic planning. There still are a lot of uncertainties over how to achieve the transformation. But whether an enterprise has a low-carbon economic planning could decide its fate in the next two or three decades.

Climate change and environmental problems have become one of the most important issues for governments and people alike. It's time executives of industries, irrespective of whether they believe in climate science, rose to the challenges created by global warming and sought opportunities favorable to their businesses. This should be their survival strategy.

If enterprises expect to have the competitive edge during this process, they must begin re-examining their orientation and development strategies now. More specifically speaking, they should try their best to optimize the carbon-efficiency of existing products, including infrastructure, the supply chain and finished products, and devise new low-carbon solutions that could meet emission reduction targets. This might break the current industrial layout and establish a new industrial value chain.

Such a transformation can certainly be pushed forward by consumer behavior in the long run. In the short term, a more effective driving force could be the government's policy initiatives. Government policies could make the enterprises understand profoundly the challenges and opportunities brought about by climate change. And they could help them realize the advantages of changing from passive adaptation to taking responsive measures.

China has enjoyed rapid economic growth in the last few decades. Its investments in infrastructure have grown rapidly, too. Since infrastructure facilities are for long term they could provide services for several decades. If there are no major technological breakthroughs within a short period, the economy may experience a so-called "carbon lock-in effect".

That is to say, if we use today's conventional low-efficiency or carbon-intensive technologies to build infrastructure, they may determine the efficiency of the system for the next several decades and the emission capacity can be locked in if we put in greater efforts now. If we want to reshape infrastructure in the future, the space available for maneuvers would be small and the cost very high.

Therefore, once a low-carbon development strategy has been set, the transformation from traditional development to low-carbon economy should be done as soon as possible. During this process, as the main emitter, enterprises' understanding and alternative actions on emission reduction would be critical, while low-carbon technology innovation would be the main driver toward a low-carbon economy.

Low-carbon development will have a great influence on enterprises. Winners and losers will be determined by their actions toward low-carbon development.

Enterprises should first step up efforts to adapt to the challenges of costs because of rising prices in energy, logistics, waste disposal and raw materials. They must then understand and comply with the increasingly stringent environmental laws and regulations and emission reduction policies. As members of society and the major emitters, enterprises must shoulder the corresponding social responsibility and deal with the pressure caused by the environmental concerns of investors, employees and consumers and the economic impact of climate change.

Low-carbon development will create opportunities and new markets, too, and technological advances needed for improving efficiency will enable enterprises to increase profitability while reducing emissions.