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Comprehensive plan to fight climate change
(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-10-30 15:22 IV. Policies and Actions to Decelerate Climate Change China has adopted a number of policies and measures to adjust the economic structure, change the development patterns, save energy and raise the efficiency of energy use, and optimize energy mix and promote afforestation. Marked achievements have been made. Adjusting the Economic Structure to Promote the Optimizing and Upgrading of the Industrial Structure The Chinese government attaches great importance to the adjustment of the economic structure and the transformation of the economic development patterns, and has formulated and implemented a series of industrial policies and special programs to make the reduction of resources and energy consumption an important part of its industrial policies. Accelerating the development of the service sector. The government issued Opinions on the Acceleration of the Development of the Service Sector in 2007, in which it sets the goal of raising the proportion of added value from the service sector in the GDP by three percentage points from 2005 to 2010. It has also made clear policies that provide support to key areas, weak links and new fields of the service sector. As a result, modern services such as tourism, finance and logistics are booming. Making hi-tech industry larger and stronger. In 2007, the government issued the 11th Five-year Plan (2006-10) for such industries, suggesting that the proportion of added value of hi-tech industry in the total industrial added value be raised by five percentage points from 2005 to 2010. The government has formulated and implemented policies and measures conducive to the development of such hi-tech industries and marine industries are developing rapidly. Accelerating the pace of eliminating backward production capacity. In 2007, the government announced a timetable for different areas to close down their backward production facilities in 13 industries during the latest Five-year Plan period. Limiting the excessively rapid expansion of industries that consume a large amount of energy and discharge heavy emissions. Relevant policies have been promulgated to control new projects. Standards of market entry for high-energy-consuming industries have been promulgated. The government attaches great importance to energy conservation, and has made it a fundamental State policy. For a long time it has pursued a policy of putting equal emphasis on both development and energy conservation with priority being given to conservation. The Outline of the 11th Five-year Plan for National Economic and Social Development (2006-10) considers it a major strategic task for China to build an energy-conserving and environmentally friendly society. It stipulates that the energy consumption per-unit GDP in 2010 should be 20 percent lower than that in 2005, and that this goal is binding. Placing energy conservation and emission reduction in a more prominent position. The State Council has set up a leading group on energy conservation and emission reduction, and issued the Comprehensive Work Plan for Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction to guide work in this field. A responsibility system is in place, establishing goals for energy conservation and emission reduction. The State Council has issued the Plan and Method Regarding the Monitoring of Energy Conservation, Emission Reduction and Evaluation, stating clearly that leading cadres in all provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government) and key enterprises will be appraised by their performance in achieving the goals for energy conservation and reduction of emission of major pollutants. Those who fail in this task will be held responsible. Accelerating the construction of major energy conservation projects. In 2006, the State supported 111 key energy-conservation projects by using funds raised from issuing treasury bonds and investment within the central budget, resulting in an energy-conservation capacity of 10.1 million tons of standard coal. In 2007, the State supported 681 key energy-conservation projects by using funds raised from issuing treasury bonds, investment within the central budget and central treasury capital, resulting in an energy-conservation capacity of 25.5 million tons of standard coal. Technological transformation conducted by enterprises under the direction of local governments resulted in an energy-conservation capacity of 60 million tons of standard coal. It is expected that an energy-conservation capacity of 240 million tons of standard coal will be created after ten major energy-conservation projects are implemented from 2006 to 2010. With subsidies from the government, 50 million energy-saving bulbs are now being distributed to households all over the country, and within the coming three years more than 150 million energy-saving bulbs will be distributed.
The Law on Renewable Energy and related policies were enacted in 2005 to give priority to renewable energy when transmitted on the State power grid, to purchase renewable energy at full price, to give users of renewable energy price discounts and to share the utilization of renewable energy among the whole society. A dedicated fund was created for developing renewable energy to support the evaluation and investigation of renewable energy resources, related technological research and development, construction of pilot and demonstration projects, and the development and utilization of renewable energy in the countryside. By the end of 2007, the annual installed capacity of hydropower in China was 145 million kw, generating 482.9 billion kwh of electricity, ranking first in the world in both installed capacity and power so generated. An average of 26 million kw of installed capacity was added in 2006 and 2007, with an average increase of 12 percent in each year. The scale of wind power increased several-fold. Currently, with installed capacity of more than 6 million kw, China ranks fifth in the world. In 2006 and 2007, some 3.05 million kw of installed capacity was added, an average annual increase of 148 percent. The area of solar energy collectors has reached 110 million sq m, keeping China the world leader in this field for many years. The installed power generating capacity using biomass is 3 million kw, and the annual production capacity of ethanol as biofuel is more than 1.2 million tons. The installed capacity of nuclear power is 9.06 million kw, an increase of 30.5 percent over 2006. The proportion of coal in the consumption of primary energy dropped from 72.2 percent in 1980 to 69.4 percent in 2007. The proportion of hydropower, wind power and nuclear power combined was raised from 4 percent to 7.2 percent in the same period. The total amount of renewable energy available for use is approximately 220 million tons of standard coal (including large hydropower facilities). According to the Mid- and Long-term Plan for the Development of Renewable Energy and Mid- and Long-term Plan for the Development of Nuclear Power, China will continue to promote the comprehensive cascading development of water-power-rich river valleys. It will quicken the pace of constructing large hydropower stations on the precondition that the environment is well protected and adequate relocation of the local residents is ensured. Medium and small hydropower stations will also be developed where local conditions permit. China is determined to develop rapidly more of its wind-power potential to the scale that industrialization can be achieved. It will raise its capacity for developing and manufacturing wind-power equipment and make every effort to construct several wind-power farms of 1 million kw and wind-power bases of 10 million kw. China will energetically push forward the development and utilization of biomass energy, with emphasis on marsh gas, and solid and liquid biofuel, and on the use of biomass to generate electricity. China will actively take advantage of solar power to generate electricity and use it for heating while strengthening the research, development and utilization of new energy and alternative energy. It will make better use of coal-bed gas and gas in mines, and develop small and scattered sources of electricity with coal-bed gas as fuel. China enthusiastically develops nuclear power, is working hard to reform the nuclear power system and spur mechanism innovation in an attempt to establish a market-oriented nuclear power development mechanism. It will strengthen its capacity for developing and manufacturing nuclear power equipment, and raise its ability to absorb imported technology and make new innovations on this basis. It will strengthen the construction of nuclear power transmission and related technical services, as well as the training of qualified personnel. It will implement preferential policies on taxation and investment that will promote the development of nuclear power, improve nuclear power safety, and quicken the enactment of laws and regulations in this field. Finally, China will push forward the use of clean coal and develop efficient and clean power generating technology, such as large-scale combined cycle units and poly-generation, and promote technology for carbon dioxide sequestration. Attaching great importance to developing a recycling economy, the government is doing its best to reduce the amount of resources consumed, and reuse and recycle items so as to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from their sources and in the course of production. In recent years, a recycling economy is turning from an idea to action, and developing rapidly across the country.
Two batches of demonstration pilot projects have been carried out, resulting in a recycling economy development model at three levels, i.e., enterprises, between enterprises or industrial parks, and in society in general. Pilot projects featuring recycling and treatment of old and useless household electrical appliances and remanufacturing of automobile parts have made satisfactory progress. Preferential policies concerning taxation on the comprehensive utilization of disposables and the recycling and utilization of renewable energy have been improved. More support is being given to key projects in the recycling economy by treasury bonds and investment within the central budget. Through importation, absorption, digestion and self-innovation, some advanced technologies with proprietary intellectual property rights have emerged, in particular, a group of key technologies which play a leading role in respective sectors have been developed, demonstrated and popularized. Applicable technologies, such as low-temperature power generation by waste heat, coke dry-quenching, power generation by differential pressure at blast furnace top, cement produced using calcium carbide slag in the drying process, and disposal of garbage in blast furnaces and rotary kilns, are now widely used. In 2005, nearly one third of the raw materials for China's steel, nonferrous metals and pulp industries came from renewable resources, while 20 percent of the raw materials for cement and 40 percent of the raw materials for walls came from industrial solid waste. Marked progress has been made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions during the production of semiconductors, including sealing and packaging. The level of greenhouse gas emissions during the making of electronic information products remains low. The State has formulated policies that encourage the recycling and utilization of landfill gas, and has promulgated industrial standards such as the Policies on Technologies for the Treatment of Urban Garbage and Pollution Prevention, and Technical Standards on Sanitary Landfill of Garbage, which promote the retrieval and utilization of landfill gas and reduction of emissions of methane and other greenhouse gases. Meanwhile, China is carrying out research into and popularizing advanced technologies for garbage burning and recycling, and utilization of landfill gas. Relevant technological standards are being promulgated, and the garbage collection and transportation system is being improved. Garbage classification has begun in some areas; comprehensive utilization of garbage as a resource has been raised to promote the industrialization of the treatment of garbage. Supervision is being tightened on enterprises engaged in garbage treatment. As a result, the detoxification rate of garbage was raised from 2.3 percent in 1990 to 52 percent in 2006. China has witnessed great progress in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture and the countryside in recent years. In 1,200 counties across the country, fertilizers are applied according to the results of tests of local soil. Guidance is given to farmers for the scientific application of fertilizers and to reduce the emission of nitrous oxide. Protective farming featuring mainly crop stalk coverage and non-tillage are being popularized. Crop stalks are also used to feed domestic animals, the manure and urine of which are then applied to fields to add organic carbon to the soil. A compensatory mechanism for grassland ecology has been created: a balance is maintained between the grass and livestock; a system is adopted to prohibit grazing, to have a stretch of grassland rest or grazed in rotation; and the numbers of livestock grazing are controlled to prevent it from deteriorating. Meanwhile, renewable energy technologies are being vigorously developed in the countryside, such as the use of marsh gas, solar energy and stoves that save on firewood and coal. By the end of 2007, there were over 26.5 million households in China using marsh gas, saving 16 million tons of standard coal annually, tantamount to a reduced emission of 44 million tons of carbon dioxide. China has constructed 26,600 breeding farm marsh gas projects, and installed 42.86 million sq m of solar-powered heaters in the countryside, 14.68 million sq m of solar energy houses, 1.12 million solar energy stoves and more than 200,000 small wind-driven generators. China has established some demonstration spots for the gasification and solidification of crop stalks. It has installed firewood- and coal-saving stoves in 151 million households and energy-saving stoves in 34.71 million households. Promoting Afforestation and Strengthening the Capacity of Carbon Sinks (For more biz stories, please visit Industries)
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